George at Santa Paula Airport is right. Flywheels can go up into lots
of
    pieces. Sometimes just into a few which can make them quite heavy.
    Cast iron and steel go up into few pieces.
    Wound fiber flywheels go up into
     many pieces in general I have heard. I
    didn't check it for myself.

    The following video shows a Mazda Rotary flywheel desintegration
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2pz1PkhAo8

    Randolph

    Well racers typically wind the Mazda engine to 11,000 to 12,000 RPM
because
    the Mazda rotary is able to do that. That is providing you don't miss a
    shift.
    If that happens you are looking at 14,000 or more RPM.
    That year car's engine had a red line of 6500 RPM as I had an RX4
    station wagon. Perhaps the racer was dumb enough to use the stock
    cast iron flywheel designed for 6500 RPM. This is a free country,
    thank God, and therefor it is a self cleaning oven :)

    Composite flywheels, as far as I know, come apart in harmless fibers
much like
    a mop or broom as I recall.

    Paul Lamar

The best part of that video is you see the flywheel go vertical and then
it lands on the track, gets a little traction and zooms into the grass
and then gets lots of traction and takes off like a bat out of hell.
Watch for it.

Rob Woods

Paul:

I believe you're right about the failure mode of composite flywheels, but I
suspect that their energy storing capabilities are not as great as those
using denser materials.

George at SZP

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