Feb

1

Navy Railgun Firing Successful

Posted by Keith McMillan

February 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Gizmodo has an article up with video and text on the successful firing of the Navy’s new railgun. For those unfamiliar with the idea, it’s basically a really big eletromagnetic projectile accelerator. You pump a bunch of current through a series of really big electromagnets, aligned along a barrel, and it accelerates your projectile.

The US Navy has just completed a 10-megajoule test fire of their huge rail gun. For the first time ever, they fired a projectile with a velocity of 8,270 feet per second. That’s an amazing 5,640 mph, and the gun is only firing at a third of its potential power.

If you’ve got the time, a bit of skill with a soldering iron, and are bored, you can build your own. Please remember to wear safety glasses while firing.

I have to wonder a couple of things about this article. The first is, where do you get all the electricity to power one of these things on a ship? Would a nuclear reactor be sufficient (I’d think so)? How long would it take you to charge up the capacitors to fire it (what’s the rate of fire)? And finally, what kind of shielding are you going to have to put on all the electronics if you’ve got an electromagnet emitting an EMP this freaking big?


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