Originally designed as a vibration and impact absorption tool, designers quickly concluded these suspension systems make robust and reliable linear actuators. The air spring offers a few unique benefits to separate them from traditional rod and barrel cylinder actuators. Whereas axial alignment is critical to an air cylinder’s reliability, air springs permit a surprising amount of axial and angular movement.

The air spring’s construction elucidates the reason for its unique advantage over misalignment. Consisting of a top and bottom plate where pressure acts upon to create force, these plates are joined by rubber bellows, which contain the air pressure required to operate. Because of the inherent elastomeric nature of the reinforced rubber bellows, they can move out of axial and angular alignment to a degree while still operating effectively.

The bellows, made of reinforced neoprene or rubber, are as durable as car tires. This robust construction ensures that you can rely on them for many years and cycles of operation before they show signs of wear. The convoluted style uses a rubber or metal ring to help stabilize the bellow, while the rolling lobe air spring folds upon itself in its retracted position, further enhancing its longevity.

Because the entire “body” of these air springs is flexible, they can stroke at an angle or experience movement between the top and bottom mounting locations within the allowances of their dimensions. For example, a lift and tilt table gets by with a single actuator rather than one for lift and one for tilt using traditional actuators.

The air spring actuator comes in large diameter options capable of up to 100,000 lb of force, although the majority of these applications are smaller sizes. Air springs make the perfect contributing actuator to vehicle or aircraft simulators, where the Z-axis (up and down) requires a wide, stable platform with low installed height, leaving the X- and Y-axis to traditional hydraulic cylinders. Essentially, the Y-axis cylinders control the fore/aft tilt of the machine while the X-axis cylinders control the side-to-side motion, making for an inexpensive motion control application.

Air springs make great unconventional options for pressing applications, such as pressing oils, bonding and laminating or stamping and embossing. The air spring is especially suitable for sensitive products, such as wine grapes. The press platen doesn’t have to remain perpendicular as it presses, so any spots with larger bunches of grapes will allow the air spring to provide even force on the uneven product.

With their simple construction and competitive price, you can expect to see more air springs used for industrial applications. Their simple and forgiving nature combined with easy repairability provides an option outside standard fixed-barrel linear actuators.

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Within the configurator feature on the website, users will be presented with thread options, and shown all accessories that are available for the part you selected. Side load adaptors, buttons, stop collars, and mounting blocks are all available within the accessory configurator and can be added directly to the cart. Items identified as “in stock” ship within 3 business days.

ACE Controls

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Construction machines and equipment deliver peak performance day in, day out — in a demanding environment. It’s a rare construction site indeed that does not have to contend with dust, mud and dirt. Which means the machine components also have to cope with them. The problem is that up till now, with a conventional air spring, users received almost no operational status information. They had to rely simply on what they could see from the outside or on their subjective perception.

Changing that was one of the Continental engineers’ aims when working on the air spring with integral sensor technology. “This development is a milestone in air spring technology. We’re ushering in the next stage in digitalization. The air spring has been made smart, enabling it therefore to communicate with the user,” says Herwig Peters, who is responsible for industrial applications of air spring systems at Continental.

Precise condition details
Everyday operations in industrial applications will gain in efficiency as a result of the smart air spring. The air spring can now supply precise and reliable information on its status, e.g. pressure, temperature and height. The air spring’s operating height can be displayed accurately and dependably. “The purpose of the integrated-sensor air spring system is to make a globally established system such as the air spring even safer, simpler and more efficient for customers — and thus also all the associated operations and processes, particularly in the fields of control and monitoring,” said Carsten Klages, sales manager for industrial applications at Air Spring Systems.

Rugged air spring, sophisticated electronics
But how do you manage to marry a rugged air spring, as used in construction machinery, with sophisticated electronics? “The greatest challenge in incorporating the sensor system really lay in integrating the fine wiring of the electronics in the product such that the air spring properties are not changed and the electronic system is not damaged,” said Klages. The Continental experts resolved this demanding brief by means of a specially developed adapter. This ensures a reliable connection between the air spring and the sensor system. “We now have two cables: one to connect the air spring control system and the other for the data connection,” explained Klages. The sensor now measures the air spring’s mechanical status completely automatically. “This information is then transmitted to the machine controller. That is the necessary prerequisite for predictive maintenance or safety. As in the past, we will stay in close consultation with our customers while driving the development of such systems to ensure they are directly tailored to their needs,” said Klages.

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