3 ms·
I'd guess the main reason is that it's an inherently more complicated design; if you don't sync the electromagnets perfectly you spend energy decelerating the r
by leetcrew 7y ago
I'd guess the main reason is that it's an inherently more complicated design; if you don't sync the electromagnets perfectly you spend energy decelerating the round. it does have the advantage that the projectile doesn't need physical contact with an electified rail, so maybe it could be less damaging to the device itself.
- shereadsthenews 7y agoThese railguns also have synchronized pulsed power systems that are quite complex. The University of Texas has been researching this stuff for decades. Here's a simple paper I Googled up https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a639371.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a639371.pdf
- ThrustVectoring 7y agoThe coils are inductors, and so cannot be turned off instantaneously - you get a voltage across them proportional to how quickly you're changing the current. As you build a faster coilgun, it gets harder to deal with the voltages generated by the sharper current pulses necessary to do useful work. And presumably you're also increasing the current involved to get higher velocity, which also contributes to the engineering difficulties involved in managing the coil voltages.