[TheForge] Power hammer Vs air hammer (OT)

[Bruce Freeman]

Although my intention with my remark was just to pick a smaller nit, I
DO believe raising questions like that can be productive.

For example, suppose nobody had yet THOUGHT of hydraulic drives.  Now,
someone looks at a mechanical link and asks the question, "why the oil?"
" Lubrication" is the common answer, but is that the full story?  We now
know that the metal surfaces may literally never touch, but rather that
the action is always transmitted through the fluid.  From that it is a
small step to wondering why the fluid couldn't be a more obvious part of
the connection.  Whence, hydralics.  

I doubt the thought process leading to practical hydraulic drives
actually followed that course, but present this merely as an example how
questioning something can lead to radically different approaches.  (I
could give a real-life example in my field, but I'd have to explain my
field first, and that would take too long.)

Bruce
NJ

>>> osan at netlabs.net 5/19/2006 8:58:15 AM >>>
That's a pretty good nit, I must confess.  I suppose we could pick nits

even more by making some arbitrary constraint about relative volumes of

fluid to solid, and then pick nits about the arbitry value.  Then, of 
course, we could work our way down the nit ladder until we were arguing

about quarks and spin and charm and strangeness... finally getting down

to strings and super strings and how doing that tends to make one's
mind 
seize up.

But seriously, that is a good point.  However, the motion of the fluid

in a solid-link hammer (SL) is usally not constrained the way it is in
a 
fluid link hammer (FL).  That is, in SL hammers the fluid is allowed to

escape in whatever volumes it may choose.  That it doesn't go
completely 
dry immediately is due to surface phemomena rather than containment. 
Whereas, in an FL hammer, the efficiency of operation is very strictly

dependent upon the degree of containment.  With much leakiness, the 
power of an FL cannot be transmitted from source to destination without

much loss.  I may be wrong, but I think this constitutes a fundamental

difference between the two in terms of the roles of fluids in each type

with respect to power transmission from source to work.

Bruce Freeman wrote:
> Aw, c'mon.  We can pick nits better than THAT!  You see, even a
Little
> Giant has a fluid connection between parts - namely the oil layer in
the
> bearings...
> 
> 
>>>>rniemi at fidalgo.net 5/18/2006 6:57:33 PM >>>
> 
> I didnt know you had nits at fancy business schools- they have a 
> shampoo for that, I think....
> MBA-Qwell, I think its called.
> 
> Yust Yoking, as my Finnish relatives would say.
> 
> But it seems to me, that, while not PERFECTLY grammatically correct,
it
> 
> makes sense to call a hammer that has a continuos mechanical linkage

> between the motor and the top die, a "mechanical" hammer, while
calling
> 
> one where the top die and ram is floating, and pushed by air, an
"air"
> 
> hammer.
> 
> Or would you prefer a "fluidised connection mechanical" as opposed to
a
> 
> "continuous connection mechanical" ?
> 
> ries
> 
> 
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