The introduction of USN electric ship initiatives and advanced weapons systems such as rail guns, lasers, and other future pulse loads to future warships creates power and energy demands that exceed what a traditional ship electric plant interfaces have been designed to provide. This creates the problem of satisfying a growing demand for stored energy, while working within the limited space available aboard ship platforms. Gloyer Taylor Laboratories LLC (GTL) KineticCoreTM Flywheel Energy Storage (K-FES) system designs are a tailor made solution to address this USN stored energy demand. Not only does the HAZMAT free K-FES rotor have many of the traditional flywheel advantages, but it goes beyond into the next generation of optimized, all composite flywheel design. But, in even the best flywheel designs, material strength is what ultimately limits future performance gains. Therefore, GTL proposes exploring Carbon Nanotube (CNT) based additives to augmenting its KineticCore flywheel to improve the next generation of energy storage. Theoretical and early experimental CNT augmented carbon composite materials have demonstrated 8%-33% increased strength for a 1%-3% net weight of added CNT materials. Experimentally exploring these laboratory findings and incorporating the results into an improved K-FES design are the objectives of this proposed effort.
Benefit: The anticipated benefit of this proposed Carbon Nanotube (CNT) augmented all composite flywheel is a 20% to 30% improvement in energy density due to CNT strengthened structural flywheel composites. This equates to a significant improvement in energy storage capability with a minimal increase in flywheel mass. The primary GTL commercialization application will be to address the flaws in current chemical battery systems by providing a CNT augmented, high energy density KineticCore Flywheel Energy Storage (K-FES) system with a safe and 20+ year cycle life @ 200,000 power cycles (chemical batteries are typically limited to 3-5 years operation @ up to 3,000 power cycles), very low lifecycle costs (75% less than chemical battery counterparts), small operational footprint (up to 70% smaller mass and volume of equivalent chemical batteries) , high power units (300-500kWh @ 100-200kW vs. 50-120 kWh chemical batteries). This commercialization strategy has exceptional merit since DoD, other Federal Agencies, and private sector markets all utilize billions of dollars of inefficient, large scale chemical battery systems as the only current and practical energy storage capability available.
Keywords: Energy Storage Module (ESM), Energy Storage Module (ESM), Carbon Nanotube (CNT), high density energy storage, Integrated composite flywheel, Flywheel Energy Storage (FES), Power
