The Brilliant Engineering of Gas Springs

Video Description

To start your 30 day free trial, go to https://brilliant.org/KnowArt/ You'll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription. Bonus scene on Patreon soon. Support there is much appreciated. : https://www.patreon.com/know_art Timestamps: 00:00 intro 00:45 looking inside 01:25 basic operation 02:19 the smart part 02:45 THE KEY PRINCIPLE 03:31 adding ripples 04:19 spring curve 05:32 soft close 06:02 shock absorbers 06:25 spring curve (for real) 08:32 the valve Additions/clarifications: at 6:20 I talk about shocks and how they separate gas and oil. The most common way to do this is actually with a double wall, but I couldn't be bother to make a whole new, more complicated model for these two seconds of a tangent. from 6:30 onwards I'm showing all these curves. When the piston rod is the same size as the cylinder, the whole thing acts like the piston is closed. Or like the valve is closed, in the case of the office chair. Another important thing to note is that the gas spring I'm showing for these graphs have an open piston, like the gas spring on a car trunk. at 7:52 the second curve also STARTS lower, even though the pressure inside the office chair cylinder didn't change of course. The reason it starts lower is because the area that the gas is working against at 8:24 I didn't explicitly state it, but these chambers do the same effect in opposite directions, which is why the effect is smaller. But I do believe they don't cancel out completely. Corrections: at 7:50 the first curve should start at 0, instead of 4. Because when the valve is closed, the chair will find an equilibrium - in which there's no net force on the piston. I was confused by the fact that when the valve is open, the pressure only "works" on the area of the piston rod, and not the whole piston. Want to collaborate? Just send me a DM somewhere! Want to sponsor a video? You can find my email in the channel info. - Aldo