Advanced Technology Part-1: The Rail Gun

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Courtesy: military.com

Darn you humans, you keep on advancing so fast. Now you have made a weapon which we also have, now we can’t threaten you…….ummm, if you plan to invade us sometime in the future with this weapon then please don’t hurt me o glorious humans……you can have my boss instead, test it on him. In fact give me the weapon, I’ll do it .. :D….hope he doesn’t read this.

                Today I shall be talking about a weapon which has jumped out of sci-fi into reality. I shall be telling you about the very potent rail gun. Now, do you remember one of your earth movie where one of your famous muscle bound hero blasts enemies with a futuristic looking gun, hmm what was his name….oh wait I remember, its Arnold Swarchenegger (and I thought my name was hard to pronounce…..now don’t ask my name because your human tongue can’t possibly pronounce my name :P). Now the gun which he was using was a rail gun and the name of the movie was Eraser.

                Ahh…I see a hint of recognition…..Anyway; the rail gun is one of the most innovative piece of technology ever devised. Unlike ordinary guns a rail gun does not use gunpowder to propel the projectile out of the barrel; it uses electricity and magnetism to accelerate a conductive projectile along a pair of metal rails. It uses two sliding contacts along the projectile that allow it to send a massive electric charge through the projectile. The current in the projectile interacts with the magnetic field in the rails and hence accelerates the projectile along them.

hmm...this is getting too technical..... don’t worry, wont bug you with too much technical data anymore……let’s see some fun facts now

Rail Gun: Hot Facts

The U.S navy has developed and tested a rail gun that accelerates a 3.2 kg projectile to mach 7 speed ( seven times the speed of sound=2.4 km/sec). A Rail gun equipped battleship from the movie Transformers. A projected naval rail gun with a 2.5km/sec muzzle velocity could deliver a guided projectile with an impact velocity of Mach 5to targets at ranges of 250 miles, at a rate greater than 6 rounds per minute. A test demonstrated that a rail gun projectile's kinetic energy could create a 10-foot diameter crater, 10 feet deep in solid ground, and achieve projectile penetration to 40 feet -  3 to 5 times more effective than current guns. Rail gun projectiles are smaller and easier to store: a standard AGS magazine holds  1,500 rounds; a rail gun magazine could hold10,000 rounds in the same amount of space. Source:  Batelle

The Power of a Rail Gun

 

                                                                                  Picture Courtesy:defenseimagery.mil

Issues facing the rail gun

Although the rail gun represents the perfect weapon it has still not replaced conventional weapons due to a few reasons.

1. Rail guns require a large amount of electric charge to accelerate the projectile. The capacitors required to store this electric charge are large in size around some cubic meters.
2. The rails heat up quickly when current passes through them, the heat generated is intense.
3. When the rails heat up there is also a chance of them being damaged due to melting.
4. The current flows in each rails in opposite directions which creates repulsion between them. This repulsion is directly proportional to the strength of the current flowing in the rails. Hence, there is intense repulsion to push the rails apart.

Uses of a rail gun

• Rail guns can be used to replace artillery since it can do double the damage with greater accuracy and it is light to transport since its ammunition does not use any propultion material.
• A portable rail gun which uses small bullets can be made which would limit the massive recoil of large rail guns. The small bullets would still inflict lethal damage.
• Rail guns have also been proposed to be used in the U.S Star Wars program which is for research into space based weapons. It could be use to destroy ballistic missiles by firing projectiles to intercept the incoming missiles.
• Rail guns could also be used to protect the planet from asteroids by firing high velocity projectiles at the asteroid thereby destroying it or changing its course.
• Its non-military use would be to launch vehicles into space from where they would use their rockets.
• Scientists also propose to use a rail gun to initiate fusion nuclear reactions.

Picture Courtesy: defenseimagery.mil

Rail gun technology has reached a new frontier and has stepped into the realm of reality from fiction and is proving to have more applications than just as a weapons technology. It won’t be long before it is assimilated into the human civilization.  

P.S:- Please don’t use it on me, I promise I will be a good alien :)