I actually think the Strap could be strong enough to hold the Wheels, if they touch the ground, because they slide. It gets problematic if both wheels do not hit the ground at the same time, and the edge of one of the flywheels cut through the strap. Obviously they should have used two straps to stop any turning and probably would have been fine, apart from flying pieces of concrete.
@@Opharg Yep. The 1st thing I was thinking _before_ they started spooling it up was if there was any linear "crawl" it would try to rotate horizontally on the sawhorses; and with only 1 strap, would likely continue until.....and yeah the strap would probably hold unless it either twisted til it broke or like you said, a wheel cut into the strap. Scary stuff.
I suspect that, if the thing and fallen or twisted off the sawhorses, it would immediately bounce around the building at speed dragging the sawhorses with it. Unless they were bolted to the floor?
Lead Engineer on the NASA Mars program, but here he is watching a couple of giant lethal wobbly steel disks strapped to a couple of oversize steel trestles using an old car seat belt...
I work as an industrial mechanic and I always tell the new guys, no matter how fast something looks like it's spinning, it always has way more momentum and torque than you think it does.
@@briggsbughouses6291 industrial equipment should never ever do anything like that even at the worst industrial plants in the world mechanical stuff pretty much never dose that🤠it can happen though next to never dose🤠🤠
They're putting their security on not been in front of the wheels, what they I think didn't calculated is that.. The flywheel can hit the door and turn around in any other direction.. I'm sure the door can't handle this and is probably going rip the door off the building but the impact can send this thing in any other direction.
@@charlesleninja I think the flywheel on the side where they were standing was somehow off balance whether it be warped or not properly mounted. It looked like it started to pick up a wobble.
Yeah....I agree. I have done tests at my work not even close to as dangerous as that test, and the precautions I have taken were well beyond what these guys did. Everyone makes their own choices....but if i need to be in the same room as that thing, I need to be inside a protected area surrounded by jersey barriers AT THE BARE MINIMUM. In my opinion, this is akin to putting a go cart driver behind the wheel of a top fuel dragster.
I love how this guy took a big steel drum full of rockets and explosives and somehow managed to make a possibly even more dangerous version with pure kinetic energy.
When the flywheel started to slip, the only reason I wasn't terrified was I realized that if that thing had slipped off, I'd be hearing about this on the evening news, not on youtube.
i like how all these incredibly smart people made all this cool elaborate stuff. and went it came to the brake they were like "eh, i'll touch it with a 2x4"
@@jamesbrown99991 It was intentional to do it near the center where the moment arm is small. He do not want the gyro forces to gey the flywheels to break free. The goal here was to be as gentle as possible. The wood has the least chance to catch and make too high friction. And close to the center is the safest location. Better let it take some time.
Well any method of stopping it quickly would probably generate lots of heat and then you risk warping the disc, which in turn is extremely risky when spinning up to those speeds. Same issue with pushing the edges.
When they had reduced the speed of the flywheels, you can see that he stopped pressing against the side of the flywheel and instead pressed up against the edge of it - this also avoided side forces making the gyro effect having the flywheel break free. I don't think they dared to do this at higher speeds because it's easier that the flywheel cuts into the wood when pressing against the edge, so they switched to this alternative when they had already consumed lots of the energy. A real disc brake is self-centering and applies force from both sides, so it doesn't apply any bending forces on the disc.
@@perwestermark8920 if only they put automotive rotors to stop the rotating mass near the center...... o wait they did. Wouldnt take a rocket scientist to fab up brake caliper mounts
I'm constantly surprised how often folks fail to appreciate the danger of spinning objects, so it is delightful watching folks who get it. Freaked out is the correct response
I was wondering why they didn't chain that to a concrete wall? I mean, parking heavy trucks on the other side of a very expensive door? What about making sure that can't happen?
@@KarlMiller Not to mention it assumes the unit would travel in a straight line towards the trucks! LOL Anyone who has ever sat down a grinder and seen the disk come loose knows that thing is going to skip around the room like a hot potato!!!
An acquaintance of mine and his friends spun a high speed industrial fan up to twice it's rated speed. It disintegrated. The pieces not only went through the housing, but also the walls and roof of the warehouse. Pieces also embedded themselves into the floor. Fortunately it was mounted vertically and no one was in line with it. He talked about it as a learning experience on just how dangerous the things they were doing could be.
Flywheels always have a resonance region. When I was a power plant mechanic on nuclear powered submarines our main engines would hit a freaky sounding region where the turbine blades would sound like a wolf howling then they would warm up and pass through that region.
@@JamieRogersSites it was not very cool when someone accidentally reprogrammed the throttle speed to 4x what it was supoosed to be and when they opened the throttle it shook the entire engine room when it hit its resonance region. I literally could not see because the shaking was so violent that my retinas could not stabilize images.
@@MegavoltHomeschool In the beginning, simply getting cable TV meant there would be NO commercials at all for premium channels. But sure as anything, slowly ads crept in. It was nothing like today.
I went to the "don't recommend this channel to me" option after watching the video. Putting only a part of the thing is not a smart move. They should put some episodes free and leave the rest to those who pay.
@@TonyTylerDraws companies always want more so ads will always eventually make their way in. Not to mention ads are content no one wants... yet we are forced to pay for the data and electricity they require. Break the cycle. Make internet a public utility. Charge a standard, reasonable rate, and then have a portion of the fee go toward infrastructure and the rest divided among the content creators whose content you view/use in a proportional manner.
Ikr. But that's the point, they're trying to manipulate you into subscribing to their trashy service. I use TH-cam vanced so idk if the following is true, but I bet they put ads in the video too
@@KryptoKn8 seriously... its all manipulation.. i just wrote a comment about how frustrated i am searching for the rest of this.... video? recording? episode? idk.. but one thing is for sure.. manipulation... HEX coin $0.16 dont sleep
These guys have no idea what they're doing the main thing is is leverage within the size of the belt pulleys whatever you're going to use it's got to have leverage and only that the generator has to be rewound so it's a lower RPM look up Pakistan flywheel free energy you will find hundreds of companies that buildings and selling them these guys are must be paying by the government to be idiots
rotating masses have resonant frequencies at a number of harmonically related rpms. When accelerating them up to the desired speed, you have to quickly accelerate it past and through the lower resonant speeds so it doesn't spend too much time resonating at that speed. I used to work with a high speed turbine (10K rpm) and its programmable inverter/accelerator.
@@StrykerV8 It's extremely irresponsible to believe everyone regardless of evidence or investigation. Not saying nothing happened but you can't just listen to every accusation at face value. Gender shouldn't have anything to do with it.
@@StrykerV8 the amount of times innocent men and woman have had their lives ruined by liars with no evidence should be enough for you to reconsider that statement
Cool idea...That was one of most dangerous concept tests I've ever witnessed. if that thing had wiggled a little further and touched the ground it wouldn't have stopped spinning until it hit New Zealand.
you would think an engineer of that caliber would be able to foresee potential issues in such a basic setup as this, instead of having to carry out such a crude and dangerous test....'I think that us pulling on it introduced a torque'...wow what a genius. possibly just done to create drama for the audience but who knows
@@michaeltoner1993 I think he would have known the potential disaster but its the other guys show. He is probably used to being the person calling the shots from every single angle
Yea I agree everything needs to be balanced and concentric for this to work , My guess is the bearings and axle shaft is undersize allowing deflection at higher rpm's causing the wobble at higher speeds . You can see in the video a lot of things are not running true .
@@wjamesm1001 yeah, those plates were wobbling very significantly... even at lower speeds that's dangerous, as it puts way to much stress on the bearings.
That's what always baffled me of mythbusters: they both appeared to be somewhat competent engineers, and yet managed to miss some very obvious problems. I mean, you balance the wheels on your car...
@@Beregorn88 my guess is that they intentionally made mistakes to demonstrate problems more clearly. Additionally while Adam is a smart guy his background is prop making not mechanical engineering.
I have to imagine that the NASA engineer thought about an acceptable tolerance for run-out, so perhaps the wobble was caused by inconsistent bolt tightening? Then again, I still struggle with righty-tighty and something-lefty-or-other
Treating this like a full video makes you feel like you just walked in late to a very important meeting but nobody noticed, and they've already made a bunch of incredibly irresponsible decisions without you and just asked "Okay so are you ready to go?" and you just say "yes" without fully realizing what the project actually is
In the late 1960's, the Librascope computer disk, capacity about 20 megabytes, had six or eight disks of about this diameter, although each was presumably somewhat thinner than yours. Two three-phase motors were used to bring it up to speed, and then one used to keep it spinning. We did calculate that if the building and casing of the device were to suddenly vanish, the disks would have enough momentum to roll over the Bay Area foothills and into the ocean.
I think they need to go faster to get over the vibration (though obviously in a safer place). Turbomachinery often briefly passes through regions of resonance before reaching the desired speed. Problems arise when you stay in those regions of resonance and let the vibrations grow without bound.
Critical speeds. Steam turbines on ships usually had markings on their tachometers or on the hand wheel of the throttle warning not to allow the engines to stay within certain RPM bands.
I'm more on the side of the rig, and especially its securing, could've done with a bit more work along with the balancing before I'd be willing to say the only issue here is some resonance... That thing looked like it was ready to run off and frolic in the neighborhood.
I'm surprised they did this test in a warehouse. They were careful, at least, but I'd assume they wouldn't want to spin it up in a city at all. If it runs off in a desert you just need to go get it back. If it runs off in a city, you have problems.
At the JET experimental fusion reactor they have 4 - 775 ton flywheels they spin up to provide the starting spark for the fusion reaction. They calculated that if they broke free while at full speed they would travel ~12 miles before stopping
@@falcon3792 Traction wouldn't be an issue. Rotating mass vs static mass. Think more of a marble rolling across glass and less car stuck spinning it's tires.
As a certified vibration analyst and an industrial millwright i have some serious reservations about this test. With all due respect for the people involved a couple of key things need to be done. 1) do a resonance test on the assembly. This will show the natural vibration frequencies of machine., for example if the unit has a resonate frequency of 350cpm when it reaches 350rpm or any multiple of it it could shake substantially and lead to a very unpleasant situation. 2) The axle housing only appeared to be held in place by a strap wound around it and there was no means of applying a braking force to the discs. Some sensationalism can be dangerous.
Sensationalism IS the point. Camera angles and video cutaways are used to make it seem more dangerous than it actually is. There were safety measures taken that we were not made aware of to bring up the "oh no, what's going to happen?!" factor.
There is no way those steel wheels are balanced enough to not vibrate like crazy! And the way they are attached to the hub is also very sketchy 😂 I love it
Yeah, kinda like fastening the engine in a dragster with zip-ties. They weren't even smart enough to notch the supports where the axle was sitting. And now Jamie, imagine an old steam locomotive: Six or eight cast iron wheels, five or six feet in diameter, and weighing a couple of thousand pounds each, rotating at a couple of hundred RPM. Scary force!
Let's use ONE THIN & WEAK strap AT THE CENTER OF THE AXLE instead of TWO 1 ton chain comealongs on each end pulling to BOTH front and back, and let's anchor THAT CHEESY LITTLE RATCHET STRAP to the floor with some cheap stamped sheet metal clips and 4 cheesy little SMALL DIAMETER TAPCON concrete SCREWS instead 4 SQUARE, HALF INCH thick WELDED PAD EYE PLATES WITH 3/4 BY 3 INCH WEDGE ANCHORS at each corner, FOR 16 BOLTS TOTAL, and let's NOT ***BALANCE THE PLATES***, EITHER FOR ROTATION OR TO EACH OTHER. They got really lucky on that "test".
Angular momentum and Centrifugal force all in one device with no off switch or braking system! Murphy's Law? pfft....What could Murphy have known about the laws of physics?
As a guy who work on 8ft circle saw I'm amazed that they never applied internal tension to the disks. Or balanced them. Saws are hammered to run at certain rpm without wobble.
Late to the party but how do you apply internal tension? And hammered in this context is deformed to achieve static and dynamic balance? Yeah I can't believe they did no balancing at all...
We had 2 ton flywheels on the ends of these massive diesel engines in our refinery. They only spin at 100 rpm, but it takes almost 20 seconds for the engine to come to a stop...with compression braking of 12 pistons the size of human beings.
All things related to these guys could come with the lable "hopefully it will be ok" i grew up watching Adam savage and it doesn't surprise me to hear someone working with him say those words XD
A slightly lower safety margin allows for lots of prototyping and, hopefully, a smoother, safer development path. But yeah, Adam needs to be a project manager as well as an engineer.
I did a research project with a one tonne 1 meter steel flywheel that span up to 6,000 rpm. Equivalent stored energy as a 10 tonne truck going 100 mph. Pretty interesting standing next to it going full tilt.
As kids we used to play on these flywheel devices, except they were mounted horizontally and had grab bars. They were known as 'Merry Go Rounds'. They are becoming scarce these days.
@@khhnator yeah, because what they are doing is so dangerous the insurance company they use must have been difficult to get to agree to let them do it at all.
I worked at a boxboard mill and the Boiler facility that provided steam for heating the drying drums also provided compressed air for the whole mill. The air compressors had 6 foot diameter pulley/flywheels and a valve control. When the system was at pressure, the cylinder valves would lock in the open position the current from the motors was cut off, and the pistons would reciprocate without compression driven by the flywheels turning several hundred RPM. When the system pressure fell sufficiently, the valves would close, and the current was applied to the drive motors assisted by the inertia of the flywheel/pulleys, and the compression cycle started again.
I've designed a flywheel energy backup system that spun a 600-pound flywheel up to 8000 rpms. It was part of a system that generated 800-Volts of DC Power, that was converted to 480-volts of AC.
What's your thoughts on this to a 3phase ac permanent magnet generator and supply part of the power produced to run a quarter horse motor on a pully system to keep the flywheel spinning 🤔🙃
I designed my own homemade covid vaccine. It was re-engineered from another concoction in which I'd take periodically to ward off mumps and measles. Both have worked great as far as I can tell :P
If both of those wheels don't hit the ground at the same time and get the same amount of traction (impossible), it will take off in whatever direction it wants. Heavy vehicles in front of it will just send it up into the air. I can't wait to see the next episode.
more likely if just one wheel hit, the thing would soon or over a short distance flip onto one side from the perpendicular torque. Hopefully it would then spin like a top, but no guarantees. Highly risky.
I work for an industrial fan company. Largest fan we ever built was 14'2" in diameter mounted on a 30' long shaft. 90,000 lbs. 14,000hp electric motor. Was at a power plant. Turning at 760rpm.
When I was. Freshman in High School I took wood shop. We were all required to build something, and I had to figure something out using scrap wood. One guy made a salad bowl for his mother. He took about 8 1” sheets and glued them together, then stopped and shaped the bowl with the wood lathe. One day he was going g t it. Almost done and he wanted it don’t by Christmas. All of a sudden the bowl broke loose. He had carved through the screws holding the bowl to mount. First it spun to the right, where it kind of danced around a bit where it hooked up and flew out of the shop window after hitting a dust pan and launched into the Security Guard’s house next door. That was some fun!
It's a whole show, 8 episodes, aired 2019. This one was.... scary. Obviously no one got badly hurt or we wouldn't be seeing it but holy s-word it was scary when they went out to the literal field to test...
@@emonvidaly No it was trying to create a theoretical device IRL, to see if that idea could have worked. That idea being something someone came up during some war, not Adam.
Having experience on the farm operating a buzz saw on a tractor-powered PTO, if those large discs aren't properly balanced, tempered, and tuned, they'll start to set up a vibration frequency and the force of rotation will stretch the metal. Depending on temper patterns in the metal the enlarged metal will try to find room around itself and wobble. Saw blades tolerate a certain RPM. Above that they start howling and wobbling, looking like they are made of rubber.
*presses on the inner rim* "Look at how much energy it takes to stop the disks." Me: "This is why disc brakes are on the outer rim. *then proceeds to press on the outer rim*
He didn't press on the outer rim initially because that would have applied a torque to the assembly again, potentially swinging it around the other way.
@@mrexists5400 Potentially both, but if safety was the really a concern he wouldn't have touched it in the first place. Just let it coast to a stop from a safe distance.
“Perfectly balanced axle” *disengages the coupling via yanking a rope.* They make industrial clutches for a reason people. Also, they could have done this whole thing using actual flywheels, or balanced pulleys meant to do this job. Not unbalanced steel plates.
Quite possibly the stupidest thing I've seen Adam do (or design/allow). If that thing let loose, there is no guarantee it would have fallen evenly on both flywheels. It could have turned, spun around on one, and destroyed that warehouse and mostly everything inside.
@@charlesbonkley It would still probably go forward because of the gyroscopic effect keeping it relatively straight as it fell, but yeah, the trajectory would be very unpredictable.
Anyone who has seen the inside of a large shafts production unit may wonder why they did not use support prisms on each side. It seems so much like quite careless playfulness.
Have you guys heard of hay balers? You could have gone to a junk yard and found a couple cast iron flywheels with similar inertia that are already balanced.
Problem wasn't the balance and inertia. It's what a flywheel does best. Which is not slowing down when you want it to. This creates a huge problem with controlling it. Cause they're trying to avoid hurting innocent people.
@@stock_movie1875 And that's why it should always be attached to a clutch like setup. It needs to be able to be isolated from the rest of the system and rotate freely when needed without compromising the rest of the system.
Momentum is such a powerful tool in storage of energy and dissipation over time. During my first year physics course, at the ol uni, I built a demonstration of how force vectors are altered by utilizing rotation. Angular Momentum is beautiful. When you spin an object from a fixed location it can do such amazing things!! Love this video!! 😀
That wouldn't work very well since the gravity in mars is different. People seem to forget that only earth has an atmosphere and it causes things to work different here than any other planet.
@@luissan515 Mars also has an atmosphere. 100 times thinner and mostly (@95%) carbon dioxide but atmosphere nonetheless. But more importantly, This WHOLE video has nothing to do with Mars other than the guy worked on the lander program.
This was the dumbness climax, except for when the poorly secured 16' panjandrum fell off a trailer and by luck alone didn't cut a school bus full of puppies in half, but that was not on camera.
My mind is spinning to see the follow-up on this. My chairs angler momentum is at it's tipping point. The gyroscopic precession is leaning me forward for more. This video has the potential energy to roll forward.
I can watch things get destroyed to bits via explosives, have destroyed things in R&D and was always excited. When this thing started to shift I felt it in my gut that this was a bad idea doing it in that building with other businesses in the area. :o
I'm sure they checked that before they accepted delivery from the machinist. When you have something mechanical custom fabricated you are required to sign paperwork showing it met specs and was delivered correctly.
@@paragwandale5037 bruh, the wobble can have 1000 reasons that all aren't because of imbalance due to them having slightly different weight. Maybe the surface isn't 100% flat, Maybe one bolt loosened, maybe the motor caused the shaking, Maybe the "stands" the thing was on is uneven... there are so many reasons that can explain it, it doesn't have to be being unbalanced. They could've even had 1mm wiggle room too much on one of the wheels, causing it to wobble. With forces that massive you don't need all that much to break equilibrium
As part of the Nerf Community, Flywheelers always have a special place in our hearts for their ease of modibility and power, though I'm more of a springer man myself
You do not use straps to secure the flywheel to the bench. They way they try to secure a running machine is terrible. You must first clamp it very securely and they did not bolt the fixture to the concrete floor.
expanded steel cage, 1" or greater U-bolts to the saw horses to hold the axle in place, with the saw horses bolted/welded to a floor plate which holds the cage, try and put as much metal to metal contact and as many ways to keep the axle from actually hitting something that could cause it to run away, they probly could have pushed it to 600-800rpm even with a slight vibration, but 1 ratchet strap in the middle is just asking for something back to happen, not to mention their motor disengage method is by pulling, that in itself is super dangerous.
You're right, they should have been bolted to the floor. However, you have two 450 pound discs spinning at about 300 RPM. I'm not sure bolting it to a concrete floor would do much, really.
Although, if it's not bolted with the frame to the floor what they did doesn't seem too bad. The strap seems attached to the floor. Like this, if it breaks off the sawhorses it'll be metal 'wheels' on concrete (low friction), which could probably be held back alright with that strap. Still not the best setup for sure, but also not too bad.
@@labibbidabibbadum what if it was more out of balance and broke off the axle and took off in a random Direction? Reasonable precautions were not taken.
Question: why, why would you start a rotating mass without a stable foundation to which it could be safely tested? Work horses? You could easily build a frame mount for the axle housing that wrapped around the housing in order to not weld on the axle housing. Stabilizing the axle housing and you could have run the test properly.
I don't think it changed much since I was in high school 20 years ago. Just something to watch on TV while eating dinner when you come home from school.
Adam, you need a clutch like coupler. Where when you have the speed you want, it retracts. Will be easier to remove the motor without pulling the whole coupler appart.
Wow finally Adama Savage content that has that Mythbusters feel to it! Crazy ideas that feel like they aren't just for the craziness of it, and the intensity of the danger involved in learning about something's limits!
Back in the mid 1980's I took a tour of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab with my engineering classmates. The host told us that they had a massive flywheel spinning at ridiculous RPM in there, and if it shook loose of its mounts it had enough energy theoretically to roll all the way to Los Angeles.
I ran circular saws at those RPM. To stop them fluttering they were slightly dish shaped, and when spun, the edges stretched outwards and the saws, roughly only one quarter of an inch thick, but still dangerous enough. When spun to full speed they ran true and the dish disappeared.
Am I the only one confused when he tries to stop the wheel pushing the closest to the center? I'm not a genius in physics but I think you have way more stopping power at the extremity because for each spin you apply friction on a way greater distance, right? That's why brakes are mostly designed the way they are, right?
That is a lot scarier than it looks. I’ve worked around heavy metal and anything that heavy, that can move quickly by itself with no control is insane. It basically is a runaway train..
I would struggle to assign Adam Savage the title of "Engineer". _"Entertainer"_ is far closer to the truth, but even then, depending on your definition, that's stretching it.
Adam, flywheels are normally used for stability not momentum. If you have left the rockets on the wheel, for forward momentum and added the flywheels the rockets would have provided forward motion and the flywheels would have kept it from deviating from its forward path.
This is so cool, seeing lectures from awesome professors then actually seeing people in the field exploring Engineering and really using the their minds to explore and play/create onto something, we need so much more of this on you tube. Keep it up
As someone else already mentioned, having it attached to an overhead crane that could withstand the horizontal load would be the safest choice, as it would lose traction as soon as the load hit the limit of the suspension straps/chains. You'd want that to be within just a couple of feet of where it would be able to make contact so that it can't gain too much momentum before being raised off the floor.
Overhead cranes aren't designed to have horizontal strength. With that being said, those slick steel wheels wouldn't be able to get a lot of traction if suddenly introduced to the concrete at high RPM should it hit the ground. So long as it was hitched short to a pole or something, it wouldn't go anywhere.
You should have Metal C Clamped the Core Axle container to the Horse tables, and anchored the Horse tables in a sand bucket to help absorb teeder toddling of the structure. I would have also have put up 5 layers deep (and as high is the device is) Sandbags like what I assembled many in Iraq. Sand bags really absorb energy, and is reuseable when need be. I would have considered doing a Belt pulley start rotation engagement system, or using like a motorcycle transmission with a clutch to engage the special center spin lock. The clutch pivot system will allow you to engage, and disengage without yanking it. I really reconmend if all possible, balance the iron place so you get less wobble. This information comes from a Disabled US Veteran who used to spec performance his 91 Integra. Give it some thought and let me know
The flywheels are to large a diameter, you can get the same amount of effort out of thicker smaller flywheels, they would also have less runout and less vibration.
It would take more mass at a smaller diameter, though. If you hollowed the mid-section with some pizza-cuts, you might be able to make up the difference, but then you'd be pumping a lot of air. Also, there'd be more work to do for the braking device to impart the same torque.
@@iamthetinkerman A chief engineer at JPL, not that smart... Well making that comment here is cheaper than renting a billboard to proclaim you aren't that intelligent I guess.
@@iamthetinkerman He's the Engineering Lead at JPL. That title alone makes him an Elite World Class Engineer. He's been the man responsible for some of mankind's greatest off world achievements.
"We've mounted our twin 5-foot flywheels on a perfectly balanced custom axle..." on 2 rickety metal sawhorses and secured with a single guitar strap.
I actually think the Strap could be strong enough to hold the Wheels, if they touch the ground, because they slide. It gets problematic if both wheels do not hit the ground at the same time, and the edge of one of the flywheels cut through the strap.
Obviously they should have used two straps to stop any turning and probably would have been fine, apart from flying pieces of concrete.
@@Opharg Yep. The 1st thing I was thinking _before_ they started spooling it up was if there was any linear "crawl" it would try to rotate horizontally on the sawhorses; and with only 1 strap, would likely continue until.....and yeah the strap would probably hold unless it either twisted til it broke or like you said, a wheel cut into the strap. Scary stuff.
I suspect that, if the thing and fallen or twisted off the sawhorses, it would immediately bounce around the building at speed dragging the sawhorses with it. Unless they were bolted to the floor?
Lead Engineer on the NASA Mars program, but here he is watching a couple of giant lethal wobbly steel disks strapped to a couple of oversize steel trestles using an old car seat belt...
But it would have been another $9.99 for a second strap.
I work as an industrial mechanic and I always tell the new guys, no matter how fast something looks like it's spinning, it always has way more momentum and torque than you think it does.
It becomes a bit more apparent when its bouncing off the floor and coming straight at you...
@@briggsbughouses6291 industrial equipment should never ever do anything like that even at the worst industrial plants in the world mechanical stuff pretty much never dose that🤠it can happen though next to never dose🤠🤠
Great peace of advice,definitely holds true for very large gears ⚙️ that may appear to be moving slowly.
...and don't touch...and don't touch...and don't touch
i assume you'd also be disgusted at how he uses mph and lb instead of kg and m it's just so much better
I am amazed they were in the same room as this monster under the test
They're putting their security on not been in front of the wheels, what they I think didn't calculated is that.. The flywheel can hit the door and turn around in any other direction.. I'm sure the door can't handle this and is probably going rip the door off the building but the impact can send this thing in any other direction.
But given how much angular momentum it has, I was very surprised it even turned on the beams.
@@geogmz8277 It could have bounced up and then back. Or any direction actually
@@charlesleninja I think the flywheel on the side where they were standing was somehow off balance whether it be warped or not properly mounted. It looked like it started to pick up a wobble.
Yeah....I agree. I have done tests at my work not even close to as dangerous as that test, and the precautions I have taken were well beyond what these guys did. Everyone makes their own choices....but if i need to be in the same room as that thing, I need to be inside a protected area surrounded by jersey barriers AT THE BARE MINIMUM. In my opinion, this is akin to putting a go cart driver behind the wheel of a top fuel dragster.
I love how this guy took a big steel drum full of rockets and explosives and somehow managed to make a possibly even more dangerous version with pure kinetic energy.
When the flywheel started to slip, the only reason I wasn't terrified was I realized that if that thing had slipped off, I'd be hearing about this on the evening news, not on youtube.
To easy to obtain an unregistered flywheel, definitely should do a background check on Savage with his past of wild and dangerous acts
I was still terrified while I was telling myself that.
You probably won't see this video at all if someone ends up in two slices...
HOW did insurance allow this without a massive containment rig?
They'll say the flywheels were just going for a jog through an industrial estate at 2am.
i like how all these incredibly smart people made all this cool elaborate stuff. and went it came to the brake they were like "eh, i'll touch it with a 2x4"
Yeah, and trying to brake near the centre of rotation, where it has the least effect.
@@jamesbrown99991 It was intentional to do it near the center where the moment arm is small. He do not want the gyro forces to gey the flywheels to break free.
The goal here was to be as gentle as possible. The wood has the least chance to catch and make too high friction. And close to the center is the safest location. Better let it take some time.
Well any method of stopping it quickly would probably generate lots of heat and then you risk warping the disc, which in turn is extremely risky when spinning up to those speeds. Same issue with pushing the edges.
When they had reduced the speed of the flywheels, you can see that he stopped pressing against the side of the flywheel and instead pressed up against the edge of it - this also avoided side forces making the gyro effect having the flywheel break free.
I don't think they dared to do this at higher speeds because it's easier that the flywheel cuts into the wood when pressing against the edge, so they switched to this alternative when they had already consumed lots of the energy.
A real disc brake is self-centering and applies force from both sides, so it doesn't apply any bending forces on the disc.
@@perwestermark8920 if only they put automotive rotors to stop the rotating mass near the center...... o wait they did. Wouldnt take a rocket scientist to fab up brake caliper mounts
I'm constantly surprised how often folks fail to appreciate the danger of spinning objects, so it is delightful watching folks who get it. Freaked out is the correct response
13,000 rpm large centrifuges need to be perfectly balanced
I was wondering why they didn't chain that to a concrete wall?
I mean, parking heavy trucks on the other side of a very expensive door?
What about making sure that can't happen?
@@KarlMiller 6:44 - it was safely tied with a nylon cargo strap.
“Safely” is a relative term used loosely in this situation...
@@KarlMiller Not to mention it assumes the unit would travel in a straight line towards the trucks! LOL Anyone who has ever sat down a grinder and seen the disk come loose knows that thing is going to skip around the room like a hot potato!!!
An acquaintance of mine and his friends spun a high speed industrial fan up to twice it's rated speed. It disintegrated. The pieces not only went through the housing, but also the walls and roof of the warehouse. Pieces also embedded themselves into the floor. Fortunately it was mounted vertically and no one was in line with it. He talked about it as a learning experience on just how dangerous the things they were doing could be.
Flywheels always have a resonance region. When I was a power plant mechanic on nuclear powered submarines our main engines would hit a freaky sounding region where the turbine blades would sound like a wolf howling then they would warm up and pass through that region.
That is so cool
@@JamieRogersSites it was not very cool when someone accidentally reprogrammed the throttle speed to 4x what it was supoosed to be and when they opened the throttle it shook the entire engine room when it hit its resonance region. I literally could not see because the shaking was so violent that my retinas could not stabilize images.
@@mackenziehaines1976 That’s even cooler. Sorry about your retinas, though. Would be nice if people weren’t careless with powerful machines
Thanks for serving. That’s dangerous work, and tough on the crews.
What boat were you on? Also serving on a sub, ETN though
Showing me a "part" doesn't make me want to pay for discovery to see what whole thing. It just annoys me.
In fact, it made me un-subscribe.
How do I subscribe to see the whole thing?
@@MegavoltHomeschool In the beginning, simply getting cable TV meant there would be NO commercials at all for premium channels. But sure as anything, slowly ads crept in. It was nothing like today.
I went to the "don't recommend this channel to me" option after watching the video.
Putting only a part of the thing is not a smart move. They should put some episodes free and leave the rest to those who pay.
@@TonyTylerDraws companies always want more so ads will always eventually make their way in. Not to mention ads are content no one wants... yet we are forced to pay for the data and electricity they require.
Break the cycle. Make internet a public utility. Charge a standard, reasonable rate, and then have a portion of the fee go toward infrastructure and the rest divided among the content creators whose content you view/use in a proportional manner.
Employees watching this episode and realizing why their parking spot was moved to in front of the garage that day
LOL
👆 Best comment 😂
We chose you because we wouldn’t feel bad for destroying your cars. 😂
Haha 🤣
I bet the NASA engineer parked at least a couple of blocks away.
Adam and Adam could be complementing themselves but we'd never know 😂
This one needs more upvotes
Thinking about the same thing
i'm sure the one doing most of the talking is the adam's apple
This fly wheel stuff is old batter technology its called a physical battery
@@sean7058Yeah for years I've known it as a mechanical battery
me at the beginning: "Hmm why all the dislikes? This is decent content"
me at the "end": "wow what a terrible place to end the video"
Ikr. But that's the point, they're trying to manipulate you into subscribing to their trashy service. I use TH-cam vanced so idk if the following is true, but I bet they put ads in the video too
@@KryptoKn8
IDK about you but I didn't have to pay for discovery plus (I just used TH-cam TV) to see this video.
@@ivoryas1696 this is not the full video
@@KryptoKn8 seriously... its all manipulation.. i just wrote a comment about how frustrated i am searching for the rest of this.... video? recording? episode? idk.. but one thing is for sure.. manipulation... HEX coin $0.16 dont sleep
These guys have no idea what they're doing the main thing is is leverage within the size of the belt pulleys whatever you're going to use it's got to have leverage and only that the generator has to be rewound so it's a lower RPM look up Pakistan flywheel free energy you will find hundreds of companies that buildings and selling them these guys are must be paying by the government to be idiots
Seems like the sort of test to do in the bottom of a retired swimming pool, while observing with a drone, from a bunker.
dry dock not a swimming pool
An excessive, but appropriate response, although I do agree with the other guy and think a dry dock would be better
Unless you want to see forward momentum turn into vertical momentum, which would be fun.
@@ryanb6503 hey, nothing's wrong with a little flywheel Russian roulette
@@NathanTruby I think an old quarry would be a better spot, one thats at least 50' deep
rotating masses have resonant frequencies at a number of harmonically related rpms. When accelerating them up to the desired speed, you have to quickly accelerate it past and through the lower resonant speeds so it doesn't spend too much time resonating at that speed. I used to work with a high speed turbine (10K rpm) and its programmable inverter/accelerator.
Yeah, Steltzner knows that. They were just drama-queening.
Oh, wow! You're right
@@DrDeuteron Agreed.
i was thinking the same, they must have known where the resonances would be... power through them.
I do that a lot with my Turbo Diesel truck....Gotta power through those resonant Freq's Fast so it dont vibrate the engine apart.
Definitely has “Cannonball Incident 2.0” potential
Why are we okay with Adam savage abusing his little sister?
@@StrykerV8 Because it never happened.
@@functionatthejunction believe all women
@@StrykerV8 It's extremely irresponsible to believe everyone regardless of evidence or investigation. Not saying nothing happened but you can't just listen to every accusation at face value. Gender shouldn't have anything to do with it.
@@StrykerV8 the amount of times innocent men and woman have had their lives ruined by liars with no evidence should be enough for you to reconsider that statement
Cool idea...That was one of most dangerous concept tests I've ever witnessed. if that thing had wiggled a little further and touched the ground it wouldn't have stopped spinning until it hit New Zealand.
you would think an engineer of that caliber would be able to foresee potential issues in such a basic setup as this, instead of having to carry out such a crude and dangerous test....'I think that us pulling on it introduced a torque'...wow what a genius. possibly just done to create drama for the audience but who knows
@@michaeltoner1993 I think he would have known the potential disaster but its the other guys show. He is probably used to being the person calling the shots from every single angle
The last thing the kiwis need is that kind of power 🤣
Adam would've had another cannonball fiasco on his hands
lol. Ain't that the truth!
Why is discovery Australia the best discovery channel?
Australia is just better sky news Australia discovery Australia its Australia that makes it better
This and bbc netherlands are like saint duo of comerical tv going on yt
@@Ilkanar BBC isn't commercial television. we pay for your entertainment! at least you appreciate it.
Honestly... I wouldn't even attempt this before having those plates faced on both sides. Giant flywheels are always perfectly balanced.
Yea I agree everything needs to be balanced and concentric for this to work , My guess is the bearings and axle shaft is undersize allowing deflection at higher rpm's causing the wobble at higher speeds . You can see in the video a lot of things are not running true .
@@wjamesm1001 yeah, those plates were wobbling very significantly... even at lower speeds that's dangerous, as it puts way to much stress on the bearings.
That's what always baffled me of mythbusters: they both appeared to be somewhat competent engineers, and yet managed to miss some very obvious problems. I mean, you balance the wheels on your car...
@@Beregorn88 my guess is that they intentionally made mistakes to demonstrate problems more clearly. Additionally while Adam is a smart guy his background is prop making not mechanical engineering.
I have to imagine that the NASA engineer thought about an acceptable tolerance for run-out, so perhaps the wobble was caused by inconsistent bolt tightening?
Then again, I still struggle with righty-tighty and something-lefty-or-other
Treating this like a full video makes you feel like you just walked in late to a very important meeting but nobody noticed, and they've already made a bunch of incredibly irresponsible decisions without you and just asked "Okay so are you ready to go?" and you just say "yes" without fully realizing what the project actually is
Yeah I have no idea why anyone would want to make that spinny rocket weel thing.
...how'd you get into my Teams call?
Your comment is very long that I can have it as a school writing and still get high mark
@@SustainaBIT I encourage you to do this
@@SustainaBIT Are you an example of the short attention span of this generation?
In the late 1960's, the Librascope computer disk, capacity about 20 megabytes, had six or eight disks of about this diameter, although each was presumably somewhat thinner than yours. Two three-phase motors were used to bring it up to speed, and then one used to keep it spinning. We did calculate that if the building and casing of the device were to suddenly vanish, the disks would have enough momentum to roll over the Bay Area foothills and into the ocean.
What does that calculation look like? I'm a mechanical engineer and I wouldn't even know where to start. What were the inputs?
@@Iffy50im guessing just alot of equations with rpm, mass, distance and elevation, i have absolute zero idea how to do any of the math though
I think they need to go faster to get over the vibration (though obviously in a safer place). Turbomachinery often briefly passes through regions of resonance before reaching the desired speed. Problems arise when you stay in those regions of resonance and let the vibrations grow without bound.
These guys were very unprofessional, or scientific.. the mars rover guy has such lame vocabulary..
Critical speeds. Steam turbines on ships usually had markings on their tachometers or on the hand wheel of the throttle warning not to allow the engines to stay within certain RPM bands.
I'm more on the side of the rig, and especially its securing, could've done with a bit more work along with the balancing before I'd be willing to say the only issue here is some resonance... That thing looked like it was ready to run off and frolic in the neighborhood.
I have a trailer that used to do that. Then I looked it over and one of the axles was of square just a bit.
I'm surprised they did this test in a warehouse. They were careful, at least, but I'd assume they wouldn't want to spin it up in a city at all. If it runs off in a desert you just need to go get it back. If it runs off in a city, you have problems.
sums up my love life perfectly
At the JET experimental fusion reactor they have 4 - 775 ton flywheels they spin up to provide the starting spark for the fusion reaction. They calculated that if they broke free while at full speed they would travel ~12 miles before stopping
It's not gonna keep going through a wall though. Sure its got a lot of momentum but without any traction its not making it far
@@jonohiggs why those things, who needs batteries ?
@@falcon3792 Traction wouldn't be an issue. Rotating mass vs static mass. Think more of a marble rolling across glass and less car stuck spinning it's tires.
As a certified vibration analyst and an industrial millwright i have some serious reservations about this test. With all due respect for the people involved a couple of key things need to be done.
1) do a resonance test on the assembly. This will show the natural vibration frequencies of machine., for example if the unit has a resonate frequency of 350cpm when it reaches 350rpm or any multiple of it it could shake substantially and lead to a very unpleasant situation.
2) The axle housing only appeared to be held in place by a strap wound around it and there was no means of applying a braking force to the discs.
Some sensationalism can be dangerous.
Sensationalism IS the point. Camera angles and video cutaways are used to make it seem more dangerous than it actually is. There were safety measures taken that we were not made aware of to bring up the "oh no, what's going to happen?!" factor.
I love how excited Adam always is doing builds. His enthusiasm is contagious
There is no way those steel wheels are balanced enough to not vibrate like crazy! And the way they are attached to the hub is also very sketchy 😂 I love it
That's why we watch haha.
Agreed. They need to be balanced and bolted to the floor, even inside a cage.
Take that thing to a tire shop. Or maybe a tractor shop - you'd need a big wheel-balancing machine for that.
If you spin it fast enough it will eventually stabilize itself ;)
There is a reason we dynamically balance airplane propellors.
should do this in a dry dock or somewhere similar. I felt my blood pressure drop when they realised it was out of balance.
See how it was bolted on too? Suprised that vibration didnt completely shear off the threads.
Adam's definition of 'safe' is one sigma lower than that of most engineers.
This allows for rapid prototyping, but also causes visible risk.
"The power in this flywheel scares the pants off of me."
Let's use a ratchet strap too hold it down.
...and a pair of saw horses to keep it off the ground and from rolling into the next county
Yeah, kinda like fastening the engine in a dragster with zip-ties. They weren't even smart enough to notch the supports where the axle was sitting.
And now Jamie, imagine an old steam locomotive: Six or eight cast iron wheels, five or six feet in diameter, and weighing a couple of thousand pounds each, rotating at a couple of hundred RPM. Scary force!
a switch to shut it down, not pulling on it like an uneducated man
Let's use ONE THIN & WEAK strap AT THE CENTER OF THE AXLE instead of TWO 1 ton chain comealongs on each end pulling to BOTH front and back, and let's anchor THAT CHEESY LITTLE RATCHET STRAP to the floor with some cheap stamped sheet metal clips and 4 cheesy little SMALL DIAMETER TAPCON concrete SCREWS instead 4 SQUARE, HALF INCH thick WELDED PAD EYE PLATES WITH 3/4 BY 3 INCH WEDGE ANCHORS at each corner, FOR 16 BOLTS TOTAL, and let's NOT ***BALANCE THE PLATES***, EITHER FOR ROTATION OR TO EACH OTHER.
They got really lucky on that "test".
Angular momentum and Centrifugal force all in one device with no off switch or braking system! Murphy's Law? pfft....What could Murphy have known about the laws of physics?
Adam and Adam showcase alternatives to the Atom.
If anyone would be involved in constructing a device that could rip through walls like they were built of melted ice cream, it would be Adam Savage...
Or Tony Stark's ghost.
If it hasn't shattered, it's only terrifying if you can't step out of the way. If it shatters, it will be the last thing you're terrified of - ever.
Next up fly wheels that weight 666 pounds each lol
"Um... everyone clear this side of the building."
What's scarier: Adam saying that or Oppenheimer?
About the same. If that contraption gets loose it'll look like a thermonuclear device has gone off badly.
@@howardosborne8647 definitiely oppenheimer
@@howardosborne8647 yeah...but there's no lingering radiation...
@@toothpasteman3400 definitely Oppenheimer
definitely Oppenheimer
As a guy who work on 8ft circle saw I'm amazed that they never applied internal tension to the disks. Or balanced them. Saws are hammered to run at certain rpm without wobble.
I was thinking the same thing like. Why not balance them like a car tire?
Late to the party but how do you apply internal tension?
And hammered in this context is deformed to achieve static and dynamic balance?
Yeah I can't believe they did no balancing at all...
We had 2 ton flywheels on the ends of these massive diesel engines in our refinery. They only spin at 100 rpm, but it takes almost 20 seconds for the engine to come to a stop...with compression braking of 12 pistons the size of human beings.
When it turned and that "oooh" was uttered, it was like something out of a sci fi horror. A machine gone rogue.
That would be classic.
"Hopefully it will be ok" was not the words I was expecting from the expert. Lol
All things related to these guys could come with the lable "hopefully it will be ok" i grew up watching Adam savage and it doesn't surprise me to hear someone working with him say those words XD
@@lykaiosonyx298 yes very true. You know those times when someone says "this is gunna be perfect" !!! No one says that if they have knowledge 😂
Being an expert doesn't mean knowing everything in advance, it means knowing what the risks are and how to deal with them properly.
This is actually frighteningly common. I hear that regularly in the software industry! 😅
A slightly lower safety margin allows for lots of prototyping and, hopefully, a smoother, safer development path.
But yeah, Adam needs to be a project manager as well as an engineer.
I did a research project with a one tonne 1 meter steel flywheel that span up to 6,000 rpm. Equivalent stored energy as a 10 tonne truck going 100 mph. Pretty interesting standing next to it going full tilt.
When you ran the math you actually realize just how dangerous it was
Video? Did you use the axle for PTO power?
@@gregsteele9002 He didn't use the truck. I'm sure that was spun up with an electric motor.
span?
I hope you had it balanced precariously on a makeshift frame and used a piece of timber as a brake
As kids we used to play on these flywheel devices, except they were mounted horizontally and had grab bars. They were known as 'Merry Go Rounds'. They are becoming scarce these days.
I guess merrys don't go around anymore?
scarce and deadly
Kids now a days days don't play on equipment like I did big heavy metal playground merry-go-round rounds
@@bentos117 had a friend end up in a wheelchair from being thrown from one
The second it started rotating on the platform, my nerves fired up, that was terrifying, and I'm only watching the video!!
Yeah looked like it was precessing.
I stood up from my seat and stepped backward with arms raised, not even ashamed to admit it.
Geeze, can you imagine the insurance nightmare for this episode?
insurance?
@@khhnator yeah, because what they are doing is so dangerous the insurance company they use must have been difficult to get to agree to let them do it at all.
The insurance company just got the link to this video. :)
@@glasslinger hahahaha! Awesome.
i mean... you think they had insurance?
I'm trying to tell myself, don't be scared because it's a video. Then the thing started to move on the horses. Gave me goosebumps!
You know it’s a video right?
@@xploration1437 of course
I worked at a boxboard mill and the Boiler facility that provided steam for heating the drying drums also provided compressed air for the whole mill. The air compressors had 6 foot diameter pulley/flywheels and a valve control. When the system was at pressure, the cylinder valves would lock in the open position the current from the motors was cut off, and the pistons would reciprocate without compression driven by the flywheels turning several hundred RPM. When the system pressure fell sufficiently, the valves would close, and the current was applied to the drive motors assisted by the inertia of the flywheel/pulleys, and the compression cycle started again.
I've designed a flywheel energy backup system that spun a 600-pound flywheel up to 8000 rpms. It was part of a system that generated 800-Volts of DC Power, that was converted to 480-volts of AC.
How much power (watts) / current (amps) did that generate?
What's your thoughts on this to a 3phase ac permanent magnet generator and supply part of the power produced to run a quarter horse motor on a pully system to keep the flywheel spinning
🤔🙃
Badass
I designed my own homemade covid vaccine. It was re-engineered from another concoction in which I'd take periodically to ward off mumps and measles. Both have worked great as far as I can tell :P
How did you harness all that force?
If both of those wheels don't hit the ground at the same time and get the same amount of traction (impossible), it will take off in whatever direction it wants. Heavy vehicles in front of it will just send it up into the air. I can't wait to see the next episode.
more likely if just one wheel hit, the thing would soon or over a short distance flip onto one side from the perpendicular torque. Hopefully it would then spin like a top, but no guarantees. Highly risky.
The contrast between narrator adam taking himself seriously and on film adam not taking himself seriously at all is pure gold.
I actually had a hard time figuring out if that was Adam or not because the tone was so different from what I was used to hearing from him.
I work for an industrial fan company. Largest fan we ever built was 14'2" in diameter mounted on a 30' long shaft. 90,000 lbs. 14,000hp electric motor. Was at a power plant. Turning at 760rpm.
When I was. Freshman in High School I took wood shop. We were all required to build something, and I had to figure something out using scrap wood. One guy made a salad bowl for his mother. He took about 8 1” sheets and glued them together, then stopped and shaped the bowl with the wood lathe. One day he was going g t it. Almost done and he wanted it don’t by Christmas. All of a sudden the bowl broke loose. He had carved through the screws holding the bowl to mount. First it spun to the right, where it kind of danced around a bit where it hooked up and flew out of the shop window after hitting a dust pan and launched into the Security Guard’s house next door. That was some fun!
So is there going to be a Part II for this video?
It's a whole show, 8 episodes, aired 2019. This one was.... scary. Obviously no one got badly hurt or we wouldn't be seeing it but holy s-word it was scary when they went out to the literal field to test...
@@gigaherz_ what is the name of the show?
@@zazethe6553 Savage Builds -- it's in the title of the video :P
@@gigaherz_ what was the point of the build? Energy storage?
@@emonvidaly No it was trying to create a theoretical device IRL, to see if that idea could have worked.
That idea being something someone came up during some war, not Adam.
I was gonna say "such bunglers ..." but I liked the way he said: "don't get comfortable". That's the proper attitude.
To see that Adam is a hugger makes me love him even more. Three thumbs up.
Having experience on the farm operating a buzz saw on a tractor-powered PTO, if those large discs aren't properly balanced, tempered, and tuned, they'll start to set up a vibration frequency and the force of rotation will stretch the metal. Depending on temper patterns in the metal the enlarged metal will try to find room around itself and wobble. Saw blades tolerate a certain RPM. Above that they start howling and wobbling, looking like they are made of rubber.
I think it's called resonance frequency.
@@casemods Weirdly enough no, what lifted_above is talking about isn't coupled harmonics.
Just what you want - stretchy, sharp, high rpm
Wish Grant was here to see this. We miss you Robo Grant.
*presses on the inner rim*
"Look at how much energy it takes to stop the disks."
Me: "This is why disc brakes are on the outer rim.
*then proceeds to press on the outer rim*
He didn't press on the outer rim initially because that would have applied a torque to the assembly again, potentially swinging it around the other way.
@@kantpredict The real reason he didn't do it initially is because it makes 'better' TV....
@@bradley3549 why not both?
Pretty sure the disc brakes are much smaller than the flywheel and are relatively close to the size of the hub.
@@mrexists5400 Potentially both, but if safety was the really a concern he wouldn't have touched it in the first place. Just let it coast to a stop from a safe distance.
A scary and dangerous experiment, I was worried about how the axle was merely strapped down, and that the trestles were not even fixed to the floor.
Madness
I've seen enough spinning devices on Liveleak to know this could have been horrific. But still cool.
“Perfectly balanced axle”
*disengages the coupling via yanking a rope.*
They make industrial clutches for a reason people.
Also, they could have done this whole thing using actual flywheels, or balanced pulleys meant to do this job. Not unbalanced steel plates.
yeah... or what's wrong with just off the motor??? 0_o
@@phiksit Right. Or use it as a load and dynamic brake to slow it down.
Quite possibly the stupidest thing I've seen Adam do (or design/allow). If that thing let loose, there is no guarantee it would have fallen evenly on both flywheels. It could have turned, spun around on one, and destroyed that warehouse and mostly everything inside.
@@charlesbonkley It would still probably go forward because of the gyroscopic effect keeping it relatively straight as it fell, but yeah, the trajectory would be very unpredictable.
Only thing better would be if the discs were saw tooth!🤣
So much in this video that would get anyone fined severely for safety violations. Woah.
Anyone who has seen the inside of a large shafts production unit may wonder why they did not use support prisms on each side. It seems so much like quite careless playfulness.
Have you guys heard of hay balers? You could have gone to a junk yard and found a couple cast iron flywheels with similar inertia that are already balanced.
The John Deere ones are the best
Problem wasn't the balance and inertia. It's what a flywheel does best. Which is not slowing down when you want it to. This creates a huge problem with controlling it. Cause they're trying to avoid hurting innocent people.
@@stock_movie1875 plus you have to take into account the gyroscopic precession effect
@@alainbellemare2168 yes. That's another huge pain to deal with.
@@stock_movie1875 And that's why it should always be attached to a clutch like setup. It needs to be able to be isolated from the rest of the system and rotate freely when needed without compromising the rest of the system.
The fact that they did this experiment with people in the room is INSANE!!!
Momentum is such a powerful tool in storage of energy and dissipation over time. During my first year physics course, at the ol uni, I built a demonstration of how force vectors are altered by utilizing rotation. Angular Momentum is beautiful. When you spin an object from a fixed location it can do such amazing things!! Love this video!! 😀
At first I was like "Wow... Tori Belleci is really aging!"
he he he :D
He did a miniseries with Richard Hammond on amazon if you want to see what he looks like now.
@@nottelling7785 I'm sure he still looks better than Jeremy Clarkson.
"Jump your bike!"
May the likes be with you
I imagine this would be ok to test in a desert surrounded by miles of sand dunes
That wouldn't work very well since the gravity in mars is different. People seem to forget that only earth has an atmosphere and it causes things to work different here than any other planet.
And if it got loose it would be the most badass tumbleweed ever conceived.
@@luissan515
Mars?
I didn't say Mars.
@@luissan515 Mars also has an atmosphere. 100 times thinner and mostly (@95%) carbon dioxide but atmosphere nonetheless. But more importantly, This WHOLE video has nothing to do with Mars other than the guy worked on the lander program.
@@luissan515 All 7 other planets have an atmosphere..... Although Mercury has the smallest, nearly negligible one.
As a mechanical engineering student, all of the equations behind this are so fascinating because it's what I'm learning about right now
Hello, could I get in contact with you please?, I would like to learn the formulas involved in that system.
Has anyone heard from these guys recently?? Starting to get a little worried that part 2 did not go as planned after having watched part 1
There is a part 2 . I don't want to spoil it . It isn't what you would think would happen
@Neo Anderson I do believe that qualifies as a spoiler...
@Neo Anderson Ahhh SPOILERS. Jk, glad they re okay at least
This was the dumbness climax, except for when the poorly secured 16' panjandrum fell off a trailer and by luck alone didn't cut a school bus full of puppies in half, but that was not on camera.
saw the guest Adam recently. He's still with us.
I worked in a metal workshop and this was freaking scary! Can't imagine the force on those things
My mind is spinning to see the follow-up on this. My chairs angler momentum is at it's tipping point. The gyroscopic precession is leaning me forward for more. This video has the potential energy to roll forward.
I can watch things get destroyed to bits via explosives, have destroyed things in R&D and was always excited. When this thing started to shift I felt it in my gut that this was a bad idea doing it in that building with other businesses in the area. :o
I'm surprised the first thing you didn't do was check to ensure they were equal in weight and balanced. Like balancing a tire.
I'm sure they checked that before they accepted delivery from the machinist. When you have something mechanical custom fabricated you are required to sign paperwork showing it met specs and was delivered correctly.
@@CorruptedErtai Bro it is not clearly balanced, you can see it wobbling, forget about micro vibrations, it's visible. No way they are going 1000rpm.
@@paragwandale5037 bruh, the wobble can have 1000 reasons that all aren't because of imbalance due to them having slightly different weight. Maybe the surface isn't 100% flat, Maybe one bolt loosened, maybe the motor caused the shaking, Maybe the "stands" the thing was on is uneven... there are so many reasons that can explain it, it doesn't have to be being unbalanced. They could've even had 1mm wiggle room too much on one of the wheels, causing it to wobble. With forces that massive you don't need all that much to break equilibrium
i'd be surprised to see these guys plan for that long. I think they want to cut down cost and make things fun and call it a win
We need Part. 2 ASAP !!!
😂❤️👍
I thought "how can they do something so reckless..." then I saw it was Discovery AUSTRALIA.
All g'day mate!
As part of the Nerf Community, Flywheelers always have a special place in our hearts for their ease of modibility and power, though I'm more of a springer man myself
You do not use straps to secure the flywheel to the bench. They way they try to secure a running machine is terrible. You must first clamp it very securely and they did not bolt the fixture to the concrete floor.
Not to mention it was a single mounting point directly in its center of mass/gravity. I'm glad nothing went catastrophically wrong during that test.
expanded steel cage, 1" or greater U-bolts to the saw horses to hold the axle in place, with the saw horses bolted/welded to a floor plate which holds the cage, try and put as much metal to metal contact and as many ways to keep the axle from actually hitting something that could cause it to run away, they probly could have pushed it to 600-800rpm even with a slight vibration, but 1 ratchet strap in the middle is just asking for something back to happen, not to mention their motor disengage method is by pulling, that in itself is super dangerous.
You're right, they should have been bolted to the floor. However, you have two 450 pound discs spinning at about 300 RPM. I'm not sure bolting it to a concrete floor would do much, really.
Although, if it's not bolted with the frame to the floor what they did doesn't seem too bad. The strap seems attached to the floor. Like this, if it breaks off the sawhorses it'll be metal 'wheels' on concrete (low friction), which could probably be held back alright with that strap.
Still not the best setup for sure, but also not too bad.
Look closer, the straps are fixed in the floor.
Now sharpen the wheels and turn this thing into the world's largest deli slicer!
Underrated comment
bologna
That's probably the most recklessly dangerous thing I've ever seen him do.
The test itself ... no drama. But just standing right next to it? Yikes.
@@labibbidabibbadum what if it was more out of balance and broke off the axle and took off in a random Direction? Reasonable precautions were not taken.
@@theobserver9131 I guess you were there to see all the safety behind the scenes stuff huh? Could you tell us about it or did you have to sign an NDA?
@@Physco219 Also, just knowing some basic physics makes the danger plain to see.
I don't think it beats the cannon ball incident...
Adam you're a Savage, I went and watched that episode right away.
Question: why, why would you start a rotating mass without a stable foundation to which it could be safely tested? Work horses? You could easily build a frame mount for the axle housing that wrapped around the housing in order to not weld on the axle housing. Stabilizing the axle housing and you could have run the test properly.
Shoestring budget , time constraints , garden shed engineering ... take your pick.
two adams geeking out. i love it
Flywheel and candidates to Darwin's award. "Perfectly balanced")))
"Perfectly balanced" what are they basing that off of. I didn't see a dynamic balancing machine in any of the shots.
@@TheFeller1554 LOL I think they literally just designed it to have perfectly even mass and just assumed it would be correct
The AXLE is what's balanced... they never claimed the flywheels were.
I think new Adams favourite part of any mission is the man hugs at touchdown.
Oh my! When it shifted, my heart stopped!
Really bums me out how sensationalized Discovery has become. The average physics/applied science youtuber has better content than this now.
I don't think it changed much since I was in high school 20 years ago. Just something to watch on TV while eating dinner when you come home from school.
I saw at least 2 hours of math and science on those whiteboards and they didn't even explain the equations for 10s!
@@ABoringTool Like they did 20 years ago. I agree that if you want serious facts, it is TH-cam where it can be found.
Adam, you need a clutch like coupler.
Where when you have the speed you want, it retracts.
Will be easier to remove the motor without pulling the whole coupler appart.
Synchronous Self Shifting coupler with a retraction that only happens when not engaged.
Wow finally Adama Savage content that has that Mythbusters feel to it! Crazy ideas that feel like they aren't just for the craziness of it, and the intensity of the danger involved in learning about something's limits!
you mean that lack of thought? There wasn't even a "this is our aim moment"
Back in the mid 1980's I took a tour of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab with my engineering classmates. The host told us that they had a massive flywheel spinning at ridiculous RPM in there, and if it shook loose of its mounts it had enough energy theoretically to roll all the way to Los Angeles.
I ran circular saws at those RPM. To stop them fluttering they were slightly dish shaped, and when spun, the edges stretched outwards and the saws, roughly only one quarter of an inch thick, but still dangerous enough. When spun to full speed they ran true and the dish disappeared.
WHY NOT LINK TO THE FULL EPISODE, DISCOVERY???
Like, you leave me on this cliff hanger and I WANT MORE
That’s the whole point!
Whats the full episode's name?
Maybe the right place to look for what happened next are the obituaries, not TH-cam... :/
Because it sucked in the end and barely moved and got stuck in the mud
Am I the only one confused when he tries to stop the wheel pushing the closest to the center?
I'm not a genius in physics but I think you have way more stopping power at the extremity because for each spin you apply friction on a way greater distance, right?
That's why brakes are mostly designed the way they are, right?
Insurance agent: "Sooo, how can I help you today?"
Adam: "Uhhm..."
This is a policy-cancelling experiment, in my humble opinion.
"We're Farmers. We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two"
That is a lot scarier than it looks. I’ve worked around heavy metal and anything that heavy, that can move quickly by itself with no control is insane. It basically is a runaway train..
its always scary when you get 2 people with the same name together, especially if they are both engineers.
The Adam show now on discovery channel
I would struggle to assign Adam Savage the title of "Engineer". _"Entertainer"_ is far closer to the truth, but even then, depending on your definition, that's stretching it.
Adam, flywheels are normally used for stability not momentum. If you have left the rockets on the wheel, for forward momentum and added the flywheels the rockets would have provided forward motion and the flywheels would have kept it from deviating from its forward path.
I grew up on mythbusters! I love engineering. Welder by trade.
Yea you ever made anything ?
Electric scooter and electric bicycle.
I do metal fab also.
The accusations are true
Same here
Hey, remember those Evel Knievel motorcycle toys? Yeah, let's make a giant one and roll it down the street.
Cool!
I have fond memories of that toy.
STP racers!
Ha, I had one of those, and that's exactly what I was thinking when I saw this video.
That toy was the BEST.
@@morefiction3264 You wouldn't remember it fondly if it had this much flywheel mass.😂
This is so cool, seeing lectures from awesome professors then actually seeing people in the field exploring Engineering and really using the their minds to explore and play/create onto something, we need so much more of this on you tube. Keep it up
But what’s the point of this test?
This was an example of how not to do engineering. It was a fail at all levels.
What is stored in the flywheels is not "power", it is ENERGY.
it's not just the balance, it's also the alignment. must be perfect.
0:06 when you forget someone's name...
As someone else already mentioned, having it attached to an overhead crane that could withstand the horizontal load would be the safest choice, as it would lose traction as soon as the load hit the limit of the suspension straps/chains. You'd want that to be within just a couple of feet of where it would be able to make contact so that it can't gain too much momentum before being raised off the floor.
Overhead cranes aren't designed to have horizontal strength. With that being said, those slick steel wheels wouldn't be able to get a lot of traction if suddenly introduced to the concrete at high RPM should it hit the ground. So long as it was hitched short to a pole or something, it wouldn't go anywhere.
You should have Metal C Clamped the Core Axle container to the Horse tables, and anchored the Horse tables in a sand bucket to help absorb teeder toddling of the structure. I would have also have put up 5 layers deep (and as high is the device is) Sandbags like what I assembled many in Iraq. Sand bags really absorb energy, and is reuseable when need be. I would have considered doing a Belt pulley start rotation engagement system, or using like a motorcycle transmission with a clutch to engage the special center spin lock. The clutch pivot system will allow you to engage, and disengage without yanking it. I really reconmend if all possible, balance the iron place so you get less wobble. This information comes from a Disabled US Veteran who used to spec performance his 91 Integra. Give it some thought and let me know
The flywheels are to large a diameter, you can get the same amount of effort out of thicker smaller flywheels, they would also have less runout and less vibration.
It would take more mass at a smaller diameter, though. If you hollowed the mid-section with some pizza-cuts, you might be able to make up the difference, but then you'd be pumping a lot of air. Also, there'd be more work to do for the braking device to impart the same torque.
The thicker plate is probably not as readily available & would likely be more expensive.
Yeh but you are forgetting one thing, these guys aren't as smart as they are made out to be!
@@iamthetinkerman A chief engineer at JPL, not that smart... Well making that comment here is cheaper than renting a billboard to proclaim you aren't that intelligent I guess.
@@iamthetinkerman He's the Engineering Lead at JPL. That title alone makes him an Elite World Class Engineer. He's been the man responsible for some of mankind's greatest off world achievements.
Sooo, where can we catch the rest? This is a massive tease. feels like the 2nd 5th of a larger show.
6:10 that moment the smartest person in the room shows concern and starts to step away
Impressed and enthused. Wish you all the very best