Rail gun

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Joseph Niemiec, Jan 31, 2002.

  1. Joseph Niemiec Registered Member

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    I whould like anyone that has any knowledge in this subject. I am building one for a undergrad project and whould like any feed back that can be offered. Thank you

    joe
     
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  3. Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

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    The University of Texas has been working on these for ages. They plan to develop a railgun tank for the US military to roll off the assmebly line by 2015. Several of their guns have been successfully field tested, and are quite powerful.

    http://www.utexas.edu/research/cem/programs/pulsed_ac.html
     
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  5. Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

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  7. MJC Registered Member

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    hmmm try mine perhaps

    http://www.evilnz.net/~railgun/

    or Holly and Mousers almost ready to fire effort

    http://www.railgun.org

    They also have a mailing list for amateur construction and a full searchable mailing list archive , your bound to have questions the rest of us have already asked

    Unfortunately access to the Utexas pages seems restricted after the events of Sept 11 but their pages are of little use to anyone interested in amateur construction , those boys are working in the 5 Million Amp pulse area - us amateurs are just getting our feet wet at about 30,000 Amps , so i hope you have access to a
    5000 Joule capacitor bank that is rated for pulse discharging

    MJC
     
  8. jmr Registered Member

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  9. jmr Registered Member

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    I was just wondering if I could bing this thread back to life

    I am working with a friend to develop a railgun we are currently at the power supply section. We have a constant current charging circuit charging a 16,000 Joule cap bank. We have a very large SCR array that will be used a a switch. We also have a diode bank to prevent the caps from charging themselves negative, from the inductance..


    Please bring this post back to life...
     
  10. jmr Registered Member

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  11. Gifted World Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    My brother once thought about building one to shoot plumb weights(you tie them to a string to check corners for straightness).
     
  12. SergejVictorov Registered Member

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    Are there any blueprints, building instructions or something like that? I would like to know more about these guns. Not the 10 meter long big things, but probably smaller ones which can be powered more easily. They needn't shot at 4 km/s... just curious
     
  13. jmr Registered Member

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  14. errandir Registered Senior Member

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    I'm having a hard time understanding the photos. Is the bright rod lookin' thing the rail in flight? Does it glow?
     
  15. jmr Registered Member

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    yes.

    Well the glowing thing is a projectile that is .25"x.25"x.5" it is just moving very fast, and it is very hot! some of the videos you can see it a bit better. In the next couple months we will have some more videos.
     
  16. errandir Registered Senior Member

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    Why does it get hot?

    OK, I just noticed that you have videos on your site. In most of the vids, I can't tell what you're shooting at. In the last few, why is your target so close (just a few feet away)?

    How expensive was this little project?
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2003
  17. jmr Registered Member

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    the first few we were just shooting out into a field.

    It gets hot because we are dumping around 100,000 amps.
    and judging by the speed we are only .01% efficient. so things get hot. The new improvements coming in the next couple weeks will improve this..

    The first shots we were just shooting out into a field, just for testing the last few we were trying to recover the projectiles.

    Right now we are only really testing the concept. We are not even really using good rails yet. We are very early on in the process. Just you wait till we fire @860 volts and use the new rail!

    However I think we may have fired our more than anyone.

    I am not sure the cost really but I would guess if you bought everything new we would be close to $13,000, as you might guess most of this project is made from used parts.

    But this is a FUN project.
    Jason.
     
  18. errandir Registered Senior Member

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    Re: the first few we were just shooting out into a field.

    I'm still not getting why the projectile (I'm assuming this is what is called a rail) itself is getting so hot. Is it friction between the projectile and the gun?




    HOLY CRAP! I was thinking about trying the project myself until I read this. I am just a poor grad student. Hmm, maybe I can get funding

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    .
     
  19. jmr Registered Member

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    rail.

    A rail gun is a pair of conducting rails with a gap between them, where a projectile is placed.

    Then one rail connected to the positive and one to the negative side of a huge power source, in most cases a huge cap bank or a compulsator.

    Some type of conductive projectile bridges the gap between the rails, completing the electrical circuit.

    When current flows through the rails and the projectile, which generates a magnetic field the direction of the force is determined by the right hand rule. Since the rails cannot move the projectile is the only thing that can move.

    basic over view.
    Jason
     
  20. errandir Registered Senior Member

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    Thanks, that basic overview really helped, and cleared up a lot of misconceptions I had about the rail gun.
     

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