It has been suggested that we should use our power plants to generate energy
in the off-hours (such as late at night) and store it for use during the day.
One idea put forward is to store the energy in large flywheels. Suppose we
want to build such a flywheel in the shape of a hollow cylinder of inner
radius \(0.500 \mathrm{~m}\) and outer radius \(1.50 \mathrm{~m},\) using concrete
of density \(2.20 \times 10^{3} \mathrm{~kg} / \mathrm{m}^{3}\). (a) If, for
stability, such a heavy flywheel is limited to 1.75 seconds for each
revolution and has negligible friction at its axle, what must be its length to
store \(2.5 \mathrm{MJ}\) of energy in its rotational motion? (b) Suppose that
by strengthening the frame you could safely double the flywheel's rate of
spin. What length of flywheel would you need in that case? (Solve this part
without reworking the entire problem!)