The previous article on the subject of KERS was a retrospective look at the hybrid system in the Panoz Q9. In seeking to bring the emerging technology of regenerative braking to racing, Don Panoz was years ahead of the game.

There are now very few large car-makers who don’t have a serious hybrid development programme, and a growing number of them feel the technology is mature enough to release series production models - notably Honda with the Insight and the Civic Hybrid, and Toyota with its Read more…

There has been much time, effort and money expended in bringing kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS) to Formula One. The much-heralded introduction saw many of the teams developing a system at great expense and not choosing to race it, or those racing with KERS not really seeing a huge benefit.

At the end of the 2009 race season, the media seemed to be of the opinion that the team that had achieved most from KERS, having used the most successful system, was McLaren. Its KERS system was developed in conjunction with Mercedes and Zytek. Read more…

In 2009, and to much fanfare, Formula One ushered in a new technological development that should have improved the racing spectacle and gone some way to placating those environmentalists who see motorsport as the enemy. In both these regards, the introduction of kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS) should have represented an important step forward, but at the end of the year the systems were dropped, and this year nobody is running KERS. Read more…

So far, KERS systems have received a mixed response in Formula One. Initially the technology was eagerly tested by the teams but during its first full season in Formula One (2009), it was regularly used by only a few.

In truth, Formula One KERS still have some way to go before their advantages sufficiently outweigh the disadvantages, so it is perhaps in their wider application in motorsport that they will be fine-tuned and their advantages eventually fully exploited. Read more…

While KERS has been banished from Formula One for the 2010 season, there are many in the paddock that have seen its worth in racing and relevance to modern road cars. Therefore, there is the plausibility that this item could return in 2011.

In sports car competition, Zytek produced a hybrid system that was used by the Corsa Motorsports team in the latter stages of the 2009 American Le Mans Series, albeit to a mere fraction of its potential. Read more…

Connected between the flywheel and the continuously variable transmission of the Flybrid, mechanical KERS is an epicyclic gear system, the focus of this article.

Epicyclic gearing is a gear system that consists of one or more planet gears, rotating about a central sun gear. Typically, the planet gears are mounted on a movable arm or carrier which itself may rotate relative to the sun gear. Epicyclic gearing systems may also incorporate the use of Read more…

The continuously variable transmission (CVT) as used by Flybrid, is mounted between two clutches within the KERS unit. The clutches allow for disengagement of the CVT from the flywheel and the vehicle when not in use, and therefore minimises losses.

The only mechanism for controlling energy into or out of the flywheel is by controlling the ratio of the CVT. The CVT is responsible for the smooth variation of ratios. The CVT may sometimes be referred to as a Toroidal Continuously Variable Transmission

Read more…

The use of a flywheel as an energy storage device is not new. The conventional heavy, metal flywheel as connected to the crankshaft of an internal combustion engine, is used as an energy storage device, releasing its energy in order to maintain momentum during the idle strokes of the engine. The mechanical KERS system has been made successful by producing a flywheel of low mass, small size, running at high speeds.
The energy stored in a flywheel is given by the following formula: Read more…

KINETIC ENERGY RECOVERY SYSTEM (KERS) EXPLAINED

KERS is a collection of parts which takes some of the kinetic energy of a vehicle under deceleration, stores this energy and then releases this stored energy back into the drive train of the vehicle, providing a power boost to that vehicle. For the driver, it is like having two power sources at his disposal, one of the power sources is the engine while the other is the stored kinetic energy. Read more…

Having looked last month at the McLaren Mercedes KERS system, this month we will investigate the use of energy recovery systems in La Sarthe, the home of the Le Mans 24 Hours.

The ACO (Automobile Club d’Ouest, organisers of the Le Mans 24 Hours) currently incorporate the following section into the technical regulations for LMP1 cars in the ALMS and at Le Mans itself (see end of feature).

KERS is currently only utilised in an ACO sanctioned series Read more…