High velocity air cylinder

[gruntguru]

Not sure if I am in the right forum but here goes. I need to accelerate a 300kg mass to 8m/s in 1m or less. This is an infrequent operation with plenty of recovery time between firings. With 10 bar air pressure this would require a 160mm diameter cylinder, so with losses a 200mm cylinder should do it. Looking at some cylinder specs, most are rated to lower velocities than 8m/s, so I assume that port sizes etc are likely to be on the small side as well. Is there a range of cylinders designed for this speed? A built-in valve to open high-flow porting duirng initial piston movement would be a nice feature too. I plan to use a close coupled reciever with say 10 x cylinder volume to maintain pressure during firing.

 

[Compositepro]

It sounds like the cylinder is only momentarily pressurized. If that is the case then you don't need to have tight seals on the piston. An air-bearing piston would be most appropriate. With air berings there would be little limitation on speed. Airpot makes such air cylinders but I doubt anything that large.