FLYWHEELS 515

Tfie hub diameter may be made equal to two shaft diameters, and the hub
length may be 2 to 2.5 shaft diameters.

The standard number of arms on a flywheel is six. Very wide

Arms.
flywheels serving as belt pulleys are made with two rows, or 12 arms; and

flywheels with very large diameters are sometimes made with 8, 10, or even
12 arms. Some oil engines have flywheels with webs, as indicated in Fig.
26-6, instead of arms. The holes are made to facilitate handling.
The arms usually have an elliptic section, as shown in Fig. 26-3, with the
major axis twice the minor, or a = 2b. From the hub down to the rim the
arms taper from 10 to 25 per cent. Arms with H and I sections are used
very rarely, but in very large flywheels hollow elliptic sections are sometimes
used to prevent porous castings. For an elliptic section, Z = irba2/32. After
Z has been found by equation 26-14, a/2 can be substituted for b, and the
major axis can be computed from the relation

(26-24)

Example 26-3. Find the weight and the main dimensions of the flywheel of example
26-1. The distance from the center of the shaft to the wall is 2 ft.
The maximum outside diameter of the wheel is D<4
ft,

or <48 in. The radius of

gyration must be assumed slightly smaller than D/2, and will be taken as 21 in., or 1.75
k

ft. Since K*-

1.168 lb-ft*,

"-HP-ftS-—
By equation 26-22, the area of a cast-iron rim should be

W 382 .
qm-
,

2*kX\2w 2jtX 1.75 12x0.2*^

X

A suitable rim section would be a rectangle 5x2J in. The outside diameter may be
found by applying equation 26-21 in which — 21 in. and -
2.25 in., and solving for D.
k

h
,

This results in D = 44.18 in. The approximate value, by equation 26-23,

is

D = X 12 X .75 + 2.25 - 44.25jn.

2

The difference negligible and the error on the safe side the approximate formula
if
is

is

used.
is

The arm section may be found by using equation 26-14. The moment equal to
is

F,(Z>-<*)/2 = 152x(44.25-6)/2 = 2,910 lb-in. If Xi taken as 1,000 psi, since shock

is

action present, and six arms are used,

if
is

_ —
Z- M - —2,910
-^ .....
=0.485 in."
,
;

6x1,000
isi
with - a/2, the major axis of the ellipse, by equation 26-24, should be
b

64X0.485 .... ...

2.15 in., or 2% in.

Then = a/2 = in. At the rim, a' = 0.9a, the dimensions are a' = in., and = in.
if

1
b
2
J1
b

Construction. Flywheels
up to in diameter are cast in one piece;
ft
8

above this size they are usually made in halves. A split hub, Fig. 26-4,