- #1
adamxrt
- 27
- 1
Hello,
Could anyone help me understand what I am doing here. This is NOT a homework question. I am a mechanical engineer in my final year at uni, and my project is to design and build an airtrack for a range of undergraduate mechanical experiments.
Im sure many of you have seen videos of airtracks operating on youtube and the like,... well my project is to take those airtracks and expand and make them better so that they may be used for a range of experiments through different topics, and eventually actually design and build it.
My understanding of mechanics and dynamics is decent enough, but definitely not my strongest point. I am more of a concept/cad/design minded engineer, but i took this project in order to challenge myself.Now, I am trying to go through the basics of how airtracks operate, and give near frictionless movement. Obviously i have to create this environment with my airtrack, so i have to know how it works. I know the airtrack creates a layer of air underneath the slider to counteract the downward force of the slider. But i don't know where to start with the actual maths etc behind it.
The airtrack is going to be a 2m long triangular(isosceles with the 90 degree apex pointing up) aluminium tube, and i need to set the air pressure, need to define how many holes to drill through the surface, their spacing, how heavy to make the sliders... etc etc.So there are a lot of things to work out, but in order to do all these i need to do th emaths first.
Can anyone help me start? where do i start? The area in particular i am focusing on at the moment is how the air coming out of the airholes creates a pressure and forces to hold the slider in equilibrium..
heres an airtrack in operation.
Many Thanks!
Could anyone help me understand what I am doing here. This is NOT a homework question. I am a mechanical engineer in my final year at uni, and my project is to design and build an airtrack for a range of undergraduate mechanical experiments.
Im sure many of you have seen videos of airtracks operating on youtube and the like,... well my project is to take those airtracks and expand and make them better so that they may be used for a range of experiments through different topics, and eventually actually design and build it.
My understanding of mechanics and dynamics is decent enough, but definitely not my strongest point. I am more of a concept/cad/design minded engineer, but i took this project in order to challenge myself.Now, I am trying to go through the basics of how airtracks operate, and give near frictionless movement. Obviously i have to create this environment with my airtrack, so i have to know how it works. I know the airtrack creates a layer of air underneath the slider to counteract the downward force of the slider. But i don't know where to start with the actual maths etc behind it.
The airtrack is going to be a 2m long triangular(isosceles with the 90 degree apex pointing up) aluminium tube, and i need to set the air pressure, need to define how many holes to drill through the surface, their spacing, how heavy to make the sliders... etc etc.So there are a lot of things to work out, but in order to do all these i need to do th emaths first.
Can anyone help me start? where do i start? The area in particular i am focusing on at the moment is how the air coming out of the airholes creates a pressure and forces to hold the slider in equilibrium..
heres an airtrack in operation.
Many Thanks!
Last edited by a moderator: