Easy way to figure FPS

[MrCrowley]

ok...well maybe i do that sh't next year i just got excellence in my first physics internal and we havnt gone over stuff like that yet.i should of photocopied the test paper and see how long it would take you to finish probably like 5min.

p.s why did you do calculations is inches per second?

[boilingleadbath]

I was calculating the time a piston would take to open under a certain force.

Instead of calculating the time it'd take to open, say, .03 meters or .08 feet, I picked a unit which would give me nicer numbers to work with: inches.

Of course, saying inches/second is a tad deceptive, as I acctualy preformed the calculation using meters/second/second (as an acceleration, that is)... but whatever.

[MrCrowley]

what was the ms^-2?(acceleration) and for how long did it accelerate before decelerating?did the piston even decelerate before hiting the bumper?

[boilingleadbath]

It was a pretty simplistic calculation, and isn't aplicatable to the real world.
I did it on request from benstern... he had some sort of silly spring-powered piston valve, and wanted to know how fast it'd open. I think his origional specifications where somewhat lacking, and we had to bump the spring force up to a metric ton or something before it'd open as fast as he wanted it to.

[MrCrowley]

by saying it isnt applicable to the real world did you calculate the piston in a frictionless enviroment for the test?

thanks for the help i'll call on your help when my next physics test comes up.

[boilingleadbath]

Not only frictionless, but assuming a constant acceleration too!
t'wasn't a terribly accurate calculation, but it gave us an idea of how it'd preform.