Science Magazine May 2014 | Page 7

MIX & FLOW OF MATTER

FLUID PRESSURE,

PNEUMATICS, AND

HYDRAULICS

Examples of some advantages of gas compression include: Car tires, air bags, and shock absorbers.

Sucking the juice out of a juice box where air pressure is larger on the out side of the box which pushes the liquids up explains compression and the balance of forces.

Hydraulics are the study of pressure in liquids.

Devices that transmit forces through a liquid to move something, due to pressure, are called hydraulic systems.

Pneumatics are the study of pressure in gas.

The operation of pneumatics is based on the fact that gas can be compressed.

As gas is decompressed, the particles start to move apart suddenly, creating a steady force to perform tasks. Dentist drills, dirt tramper, blow horns are examples of pneumatics. It wasn’t until the beginning of the industrial revolution when a British mechanic named Joseph Bramah applied the principle of Pascal’s law in the development of the first hydraulic press.

The gas must be enclosed in a sealed container with strong walls so the molecules can distribute themselves through the container to be compressed.

There is so much space between gas particles, so even after they are compressed, space between the particles still exists so they still act like a gas.

An external force is applied to the gas to push the particles together. Since liquid and solids particles are close together, they can’t be pushed together as much as gas because gas particles are much more spread out.

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