Talk:Pneumatic motor

‹See TfM›

Proposed merge with compressed-air engine and pneumatic actuator

This article as well as Pneumatic actuator - which is a technical page, and the compressed-air engine should all be merged.

Now that this page is no longer a stub, I think it is sufficient to stand on its own.

I do support the merge of pneumatic actuator into pneumatic motor, but I don't necessarily support the merge of compressed-air engine, as I see the engine article being about their use in vehicles. Although, currently, there is a lot of redundancy that needs to be resolved. Also, if the two articles are to stand on their own, the differences need to be well defined. Wizard191 (talk) 16:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Have you looked into the legitimacy of the pneumatic actuator article at all? The only comment on the page's discussion is that the page is "horribly flawed." Randischieber (talk) 23:00, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Please could you identify good sourced definitions of p.a., p.m., and c.a.e, that would allow them to be combined, or separated. My specific concern is that an actuator is not really a motor, and that the most successful c.a.e.s are actually external (or sometimes internal) combustion engines. I think there may be grounds to combine pm and cae, but it seems stretch to include pneumatic rams in the same article, even though I once built a piece of production machinery that used a ram to drive a rotor via a ratchet. Greglocock (talk) 09:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Quite right Greglocock, we really do need some RS for definitions of each. This is getting a bit out of my realm of my expertise, but around the corner from my desk are a bunch of engineers that design custom air motors, so I might talk to them. Wizard191 (talk) 12:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

(un-indent) OK, after doing some research there isn't any real difference between the air motors found in vehicles (as mostly outlined in compressed-air engine) and all other applications (as outlined in pneumatic motor). Compressed air engines all used one of three mechanisms to convert compressed air directly to mechanical energy: axial piston, rotary vane, or a rotary piston.^[1] The underlying principle is that the energy comes from the expansion of the air and not its use to aid in another energy generating system (i.e. a heat engine). As such, they should definitely be merged. Greglocock, your observation that the compressed-air motors might in fact be external combustion engines or internal combustion engines is incorrect by their definitions. EC engines are heat engines and IC engines are...well they aren't compressed-air engines. (Do note that people have incorrectly defined a heat engine as an air engine, see this).

As far as the actuator page goes, I'm leaning toward not merging them, because an actuator does a limited motion, whereas a motor creates motion over the full 360° degrees of rotation. Note that's my definition of actuator, because neither the pneumatic actuator nor the actuator article properly define it.

Other good refs: [2] [3] [4]. Wizard191 (talk) 17:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Good, so are you going to move all of the heat engines off the compressed air engine page? That is, torpedo motors, MDI's current engine, etc. Where are you going to put them? Can you find any thermodynamic reason that allows you to differentiate between an external combustion engine that uses air as its working fluid, and a compressed air engine with an ambient reheat stage like the railway engines had? Cos there isn't one. Greglocock (talk) 01:29, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Torpedo#Compressed_air states that it is a typical pneumatic motor with a piston; definitely not an EC or IC. The MDI system is also not a heat engine, but a pneumatic motor using a piston. Therefore I'm confused as to why the merge won't work. All of the applications given on the compressed-air engine pages are of pneumatic motors. Wizard191 (talk) 16:33, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I believe the Compressed air engine page should be merged into the Pneumatic motor page under a header labeled something like: Transportation Uses. The Pneumatic motor article seems to be soundly written with more legitimate sources. The pneumatic actuator article should be labeled a stub and not considered for merging.Joseftirol89 (talk) 04:52, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Wizard has it right, MDI is an air engine, no combustion, as are the rest of the applications on compressed-air engine. Joseftirol--I think you have the right idea for the merger. Randischieber (talk) 21:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC)