Flywheel Effect

The flywheel effect is the continuation of oscillations in an oscillator circuit after the control stimulus has been removed. This is usually caused by interacting inductive and capacitive elements in the oscillator. Circuits undergoing such oscillations are said to be flywheeling.

The flywheel effect may be desirable, such as in phase-locked loops used in synchronous systems, or undesirable, such as in voltage-controlled oscillators.

Flywheel effect is used in class C modulation where efficiency of modulation can be achieved as high as 90%.

Famous quotes containing the words flywheel and/or effect:

    “Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.”
    —Annie Dillard (b. 1945)

    “I have witnessed, and greatly enjoyed, the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide.”
    —Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)