Simulation newbie - could somebody explain how to simulate gas spring?

Hi Tadeusz,
What are you interested in calculating?
For example are you wanting to look at sizing of the sping/damper or stress in the structure for different spring/damper loads?

If you are sizing the spring/damper, then motion analysis is your best bet. There is a spring/damper object you define the end points and the free length. How you run it depends on the operation. Does the spring close the door and the damper control the rate of closure? or is there no spring and just a damper to control closure rate. It's then a matter of starting in an open position and letting the stretched spring do its thing or apply a force and see what the rate of closure is.

If you are looking at stress in the surrounding structure, you can define spring connector, but no damping . Alternatively you can use motion simulation to generate forces and then apply those to the model It's a little work and you have to have some care in how you set up joints and the like.

Cheers,

Ian

Not sure exactly what you are trying to calculate but I would guess that you may want to know based on the position and force exerted by the spring, at what point the door will be baised to open or close.

when I have sized gas springs, setting up a free body diagram works best. Once you have your FBD correct you can then put it into an excel spread sheet and run different senarios. Also many of the suppliers really want to educate the customers so they are more than willing to put your particular case into their custom designed software and tell you what size gas spring you need.