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A heavy wheel attached to a rotating shaft, a flywheel smooths out delivery of power from a motor to a machine. The inertia of the flywheel moderates fluctuations in the speed of the engine and stores the excess energy for intermittent use. In automobile engines, the flywheel smooths out the pulses of energy provided by combustion in the cylinders, and provides energy for the compression stroke of the pistons. In power presses, the punching, shearing, and forming are done in a fraction of the operating cycle. During the rest of the cycle, the speed of the flywheel is built up by a comparatively low-powered motor, and most of the required energy for the cycle is provided by the flywheel.

Examples of flywheel in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web And as this flywheel keeps spinning, your employer brand could grow to become more attractive, and your recruitment game will get stronger. — Nina Quist, Forbes, 2 Nov. 2021 That triggers a gold rush for other creators to participate in a conversation that appears to be dominating the app, creating a flywheel of more content. — Chris Stokel-walker, Time, 29 Apr. 2022 One smoothing technology currently in use is the flywheel: in advanced versions, masses of metal weighing a ton or more levitate in vacuums by means of magnets, as electric motors rotate them tens of thousands of times per minute. — Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker, 18 Apr. 2022 Revs climb—and fall off—instantly, as if the 4.0-liter has a fidget spinner for a flywheel. — Ezra Dyer, Car and Driver, 14 Apr. 2022 Our strategy has been to get the flywheel spinning. — Grace L. Williams, Forbes, 31 Jan. 2022 The PoS layer 1 chains can then leverage their monetary flywheel to further grow their network by issuing new tokens. — Tascha Che, Wired, 9 Feb. 2022 Its consumer funnels didn’t become a subscriber flywheel that drove a robust global platform after all. — Cynthia Littleton, Variety, 28 Jan. 2022 Combined with the manual transmission’s 30 percent lighter flywheel, and the rev-match system for the Type R, the new Civic Si’s drivetrain responds to throttle input without hesitation. — Karl Brauer, Forbes, 6 Dec. 2021 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'flywheel.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.