The Anti-Spacer for Forks

[Tony S]

GET OUT!

Carbon Air Aims to Make Air Suspension More Like Coil - Pond Beaver 2021 - Pinkbike

Carbon Air has been making products for the air suspension in Audi's A6 and A7 cars since 2017. Now, they're developing their product for mountain bikes.

www.pinkbike.com

 

[scott43]

That's pretty awesome. Always been the short-coming of air suspension. Coil is so heavy but so supple. This is a great product and hopefully becomes standard equipment...

 

[Ken_R]

Coil is cool but I would need 2 springs. One for my "winter" weight and one for my "summer" weight. Also I would need another for when I load up my pack for longer rides...

 

[Tony S]

That's pretty awesome. Always been the short-coming of air suspension. Coil is so heavy but so supple. This is a great product and hopefully becomes standard equipment...

Yeah, I'm always that guy who takes all the spacers out immediately.

 

[Tom K.]

I read way too much of this stuff, and was intrigued by the approach, but I don't get the idea that you can get more air into the chamber by putting these (admittedly high-tech) volume reducers into the fork.

Isn't this governed by good old reliable PV = nRT?

Probably reading too fast.......

 

[Tony S]

I read way too much of this stuff, and was intrigued by the approach, but I don't get the idea that you can get more air into the chamber by putting these (admittedly high-tech) volume reducers into the fork.

Isn't this governed by good old reliable PV = nRT?

Probably reading too fast.......

@mdf, please weigh in!

 

[Tony S]

I read way too much of this stuff, and was intrigued by the approach, but I don't get the idea that you can get more air into the chamber by putting these (admittedly high-tech) volume reducers into the fork.

Isn't this governed by good old reliable PV = nRT?

Probably reading too fast.......

My sense was that they would not describe it as "getting more air into the chamber." I think they would describe it as "finding a way for a given number of molecules to fit into a given space under less pressure".

 

[mdf]

@mdf, please weigh in!

The idea is that more gas molecules can stick to a surface than can fill up an empty space. And this high-tech charcoal has a lot of texture so a LOT of surface area. It never occured to me that the sticking was pressure-dependant and reversible. Very clever!

 

[scott43]

Think about the surface area stated. Pretty remarkable.

 

[cantunamunch]

The idea is that more gas molecules can stick to a surface than can fill up an empty space. And this high-tech charcoal has a of texture so a LOT of surface area. It never occured to me that the sticking was pressure-dependant and reversible. Very clever!

Isn't that how pressure swing adsorption oxygen concentrators work? And non-liquid CO2 scrubbers?

Pressure swing adsorption - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[mdf]

Presumably. But those are not something I've ever had reason to think about.

 

[cantunamunch]

Presumably. But those are not something I've ever had reason to think about.

Well, now every time environmentalists talk about cleaning up fossil fuel power plants you can think about your fork

 

[Tom K.]

Perhaps this is something like the polar nature of water?

The world would be a very different place if water were non-polar.

For instance, ice would not necessarily form at the top of a lake.

And pipes might not burst when they froze.

 

[cantunamunch]

Perhaps this is something like the polar nature of water?

Yeh, not sure about polar but you're right about the ice @ top. The liquid version of this trick is a toy called a Cartesian diver. Higher pressure -> gas dissolves in liquid -> liquid density decreases so floaty things sink. Reversible, ofc.


Kinda funky, hey? Ice only floats at a certain range of pressures. Think about that the next time anyone talks about frozen pumping pipelines anywhere.

 

[Tom K.]

Yeh, not sure about polar but you're right about the ice @ top. The liquid version of this trick is a toy called a Cartesian diver. Higher pressure -> gas dissolves in liquid -> liquid density decreases so floaty things sink. Reversible, ofc.

Kinda funky, hey? Ice only floats at a certain range of pressures. Think about that the next time anyone talks about frozen pumping pipelines anywhere.

Fun with math and science!

It's the ordered, inflexible crystal lattice structure of ice that results in floating, not the polar nature of the water molecule specifically -- I knew I was reaching a LONG ways back in the brain on this one.

Great article on floating ice:

Why does ice float on water?

Normally, solids are more dense than liquids - so why is ice the exception?

www.sciencefocus.com

13 known types of ice?!?!