The first issue is definitely solvable, thats just a material science issue. The second one is also definitely possible, but depending on the payload it might be very difficult. Seems easier to just accelerate a tungsten sphere to mach 4 than to bother with a warhead.
For the intense heat, thats a waste product. Get rid of it by not producing it in the first place. Which means your rails are now cryocooled superconductors.
For the immense forces, i might need to look into railguns again. Afaik the only force that isnt being counteracted is the force on the projectile. I might be wrong at those power levels, while the net force should be zero the force on the arms could be opposite, ripping the railgun apart or crushing it. The solution i would think is coiling your rails around the barrel, now the rails effectively act as their own support with a minor bracing.
For the record, i didnt put it together that he was referring specifically to the large models. I just knew i made a rail gun back in high school and its wasnt difficult, so the idea that the US govt cant copy my project struck me as absurd.
Finally, im a hobby electrician with my passions lying more in technology and futurism, so i have looked into railguns in passing but I do not work for the military nor have i looked into the specifics of the large scale models, so corrections are more than welcome.
Yeah the first issue is in theory solvable, but they never managed to do it, not in a practical manner at least (huge cryocooled superconductors is probably not very practical)
The forces are from the immense magnetic fields, two parallel wires with current in opposite directions will repel eachother, so the rails are trying to move apart from eachother
This plus the heat causing material expansion plus the rails needing to be very straight for it all to work, and you end up having a bit of an engineering headache on your hands
But yeah it’s mainly when you build large ones meant to fire things at really really high speeds, maybe we’ll find a way to improve it one day, but for now it’s sadly dead in the water (in the military sector at least, but they tend to be the main driving force behind technology that fires things)
The first issue is definitely solvable, thats just a material science issue. The second one is also definitely possible, but depending on the payload it might be very difficult. Seems easier to just accelerate a tungsten sphere to mach 4 than to bother with a warhead.
For the intense heat, thats a waste product. Get rid of it by not producing it in the first place. Which means your rails are now cryocooled superconductors.
For the immense forces, i might need to look into railguns again. Afaik the only force that isnt being counteracted is the force on the projectile. I might be wrong at those power levels, while the net force should be zero the force on the arms could be opposite, ripping the railgun apart or crushing it. The solution i would think is coiling your rails around the barrel, now the rails effectively act as their own support with a minor bracing.
For the record, i didnt put it together that he was referring specifically to the large models. I just knew i made a rail gun back in high school and its wasnt difficult, so the idea that the US govt cant copy my project struck me as absurd.
Finally, im a hobby electrician with my passions lying more in technology and futurism, so i have looked into railguns in passing but I do not work for the military nor have i looked into the specifics of the large scale models, so corrections are more than welcome.
Yeah the first issue is in theory solvable, but they never managed to do it, not in a practical manner at least (huge cryocooled superconductors is probably not very practical)
The forces are from the immense magnetic fields, two parallel wires with current in opposite directions will repel eachother, so the rails are trying to move apart from eachother
This plus the heat causing material expansion plus the rails needing to be very straight for it all to work, and you end up having a bit of an engineering headache on your hands
But yeah it’s mainly when you build large ones meant to fire things at really really high speeds, maybe we’ll find a way to improve it one day, but for now it’s sadly dead in the water (in the military sector at least, but they tend to be the main driving force behind technology that fires things)