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It is a pity you cannot have drawings in the answers.

To understand pneumatic leverage, imagine you have two bicycle pumps to pump up the tires of your bicycle. One has a piston with a surface area of 4cm2 (square centimeters) and the other has a piston with a surface area of 8cm2. You connect them together. This means that if you pump one you will see the piston moving of the other.

When you push the piston of the small pump with a force of let's say 100 Newton (roughly 22 lbs) and block the piston of the big pump: With what force you have to block the piston of the big pump?

You push with a force of 100 Newton (about 22 lbs for the Americans) on the small piston, which will result in a pressure in the system of 100 Newton divided by 4cm2 or 25 Newton per cm2 (pressure). This pressure will be equal under the piston of the connected big pump. So what is the force necessary to block the piston of the big pump? The piston of the big pump has a surface area of 8cm2 this we multiply that with the pressure of 25 Newton/cm2 which results in the force needed to block the big pump of 200 Newton.

By applying 100 Newton of force you can, through pneumatic leverage, create a force of 200 Newton.

The leverage depends on the differences of surface area of the two pistons.

This is the principle of pneumatic leverage. To understand this you have to distinguish between Force and Pressure.

Force is expressed in Newtonor Lbs or Kgetc.

Pressure is expressed in: Force per surface unit. Like Newton/cm2 or lbs/square inch or Kg per m2.

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11y ago

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