Coilguns As Weapons

[P4raMagnet1c]

Hi guys.

 

Just starting to build a new coilgun, and I was wondering if we could ever use them as viable military weapons. If not, why? My guess would would be either reliability or finding a power source. Maybe they will be used, in a form such as this: http://www.thinkbotics.com/military.htm

 

Any ideas, feel free to post.

[CaptainPanic]

My first sentence is maybe a bit cynical, and not very technical... but I am sure that coil guns will be built, and will have a market. Sadly, humans are always interested in new ways to kill each other.

 

That said, you need capacitors to store your energy (the charge), because they can release it much faster than batteries.

Here's a wikipedia page that says that you can store about 0.1 MJ/kg in electric double layer capacitors. Note that these are not your average household capacitors.

And here's a list of .30-06 springfield cartridges which says (in the right side table at the bottom) that a bullet will have around 4000 J.

 

So, capacitors of just 40 grams should be able to hold enough energy to shoot a single bullet.

The only question I cannot answer is whether you can discharge it quickly enough, and whether you can build the electric system to control it.

 

p.s. if you really plan to build this... please keep safety in mind. It will be just as violent as a normal gun!

[swansont]

The US Navy has tested an EM gun

 

http://blogs.scienceforums.net/swansont/archives/7323

[Realitycheck]

DOD recently canceled the monster railgun development project they had on the table, due to budget constraints.

[Enthalpy]

Coilguns exist at least as demonstrators, yes. Some hobbyists have already built convincing ones.

 

More: they have always been thought as weapons. No electromagnetic gun can put a payload into orbit, for instance.

 

As for risks: far before the bullet gets harmful, an experimenter will see coils explode, commutators vaporize, and arcs producing deafening detonations. Plus the usual hazards associated with high voltage. So yes, take care.

 

Hi Realitycheck, I believe we met on a different forum!