hydraulic accumulators on air ride

is it possible to use hydraulic accumulators on air ride? like for use with air cylinders.

I also wondered the same thing, because i am having a hard time deciding how to mount my rear shocks, and accumulators would probably smooth out my ride alot easier... I hate to bring this up but i think airbagit.com sells some accumulators but it says for use with air cylinders...

I know they make air accumulators, which is essentially a small air tank plumbed in line with the air bag.  Not completely sure how it is plumbed but that is the vibe I get from it

Edited: 10/21/2009 9:17:08 AM by AVTekk

Air accumulators are available, and youre right Mike, its just a .5 gal tank plumbed off a tee between the valve and wheel. Its usually used on cylinders because they have such a small internal volume and a rigid structure, the accumulator gives the system a lot more volume for the air to compress when you hit a bump. You can use them for bags as well. From what I understand of hydraulic accumulators is they are a spring loaded (or pressurized gas) cylinder with a diaphram to seperate it from the fluid. I guess you can use them on air, but maybe the spring wont compress as much as it normally would..

I have never done it, and I am not an air bag guy, so this is my view from a Hydraulic point of view. The pressure in hydraulic lines are 1000 +. Our lines are rated anywhere from 3000-5000. The accumulators come precharged at 350psi, but I have charged them up to 1000psi to achieve the correct ride. What I remember from air bags, 150 usually gets you full lift. So I would say that the normal accumulators we would use will not work on an air bag setup. And yes, ^^^ you are correct. The accumulators we use are a diaphram setup. Pressurized nitrogen on one side, hydraulic oil (in line with the cylinder) on the other side, seperated by a bladder/ diaphram.

I guess for size purposes, could you possibly discharge about 300 psi from a hydraulic accumulator?  Even still though, for ride height where you are most concerned about ride, you might only be running 70-80 psi in the front bags, so ratio wise you would be nowhere close as hydraulics to their use of accums.    

I would think it would be similar to a bag over leaf setup with 2 fighting spring rates, I would think it would have to be used as a shock such as a hydraulic cylinder as the shock and then run a line to the accumulator, but I dont know how much dampening travel you would get that way, probably very little.

The smal half gallon air ank is the way to go with an air cylinder. If you dont want to use airbagit.com, try www.macssprings.com. They have all sizes of airtanks including a one gallon tank split in half to make 2 half gallon chambers in 1 space. That way you can run the front off one tank and the rear off one tank. Real clean like That's really the only way to go for a good ride on air cylinders, my buddy put them on after he was over hopping it around. He had a Honda Accord 4 door and the ride was awesome! It just doesnt go up and down as fast (which fir most of us, would be a good thing, not the people that like to hop)

I think at the end of the day, a shock is still going to be a better option.  At the same time though, the OP hasn't mentioned exactly what his reasoning for asking is

I doubt it would work. Hydraulic pressure and Air pressure work differently. Air works on a principal of the more air(psi) the higher you lift. Hydraulics work on a princial that once you get to a lift pressure to get the vehicle off the ground and that pressure pretty much stays the same thru the entire range of motion. As Jermey said working pressures in Hydraulics is much higher. 8 to 10 times higher and a general rule of thumb is to charge accumulators to 50 or 60 percent of the working pressure of what ever set up you have. My crew cab has a rear working pressure of just under 600 psi in the rear(we put a guage on it)  and  has 300psi in the rear accum. and 500 in the front accum. Seths Isuzu is running 400 in the rear and almost 850 or so in the front.  There are a lot of variable that define working pressures. Vehicle weight, suspension, Lift points. bla bla bla. So the two theorys that it would not work is one the variable working pressure of air would make a "sweet spot" in your ride pressure/accum. pressure and two, you would only have your accum. charged to maybe 70 psi? Not sure it would even do anything. Plus the cost of an accum. versus a shock.