Modeling and design of a frictionless pneumatic cylinder system with air bearings

摘要

This paper presents the modeling and parameter optimization design of a frictionless pneumatic cylinder with a floating piston functioned as an aerostatic bearing in pneumatic chambers. Two mathematical models are firstly developed to capture floating charateristics of one-dimensional flow and two-dimensional flow in the air gap between the piston and the cylinder wall. The influence of structural design parameters upon cylinder performances is subsequently analyzed and compared for providing insight into the achievable leakage flow rate and load capacity of the cylinder system. Finally, an optimal design method with non-dimensional parameters of the floating piston is developed to achieve minimum leakage flow rate subject to application requirements with certain load capacity and constraint volume. The proposed design method has the advantages of providing a generic and facilitate specification of parameter values and ranges for the frictionless pneumatic cylinder with air bearing.