World's Most Powerful Electromagnetic Rail Gun

[preludeman92]

I helped build and design the thing!

Last Thursday the Guiness Book of World Records officiated this to be a world record for most powerful rail gun ever. The launch they witnessed (and can publish) was 9.96 MegaJoules of energy. I'll save you guys from digging around for old physics notes. The hunk of aluminum we call a bullet left the gun at over Mach7 or 3.2 kilometers/second. Your accord would have to travel 123km/sec or 276,000 mi/hr to acheive the same energy disapated by this gun... and it's at 1/3 max power.

Earlier I said the lanuch Guiness could publish because anything over 10MegaJoules is classified information. That's right, they're checking my background right now. My life is under the FBI's microscope to determine if I'm allowed "secret" clearance.

Anyways, on with the video and pictures.

Video of the launch:

http://www.livescience.com/php/video...080201-railgun

Yahoo's article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/...blescifiweapon

Official press release from the navy:

http://www.navy.mil/search/display.a...d=34718&page=1

More pictures:

http://www.navy.mil/list_all.asp?id=34718

I think it's cool that we're actually going to use a bigger version of this in battle. Hopefully there are a few other engineers or nerds here that will appreciate this.

[lokuputha]

I think it's cool that we're actually going to use a bigger version of this in battle. Hopefully there are a few other engineers or nerds here that will appreciate this.

I am a Physics and Mechanical Engineering student. I appreciate the technology but regret its ultimate application: death.

Cool stuff either case.

This technology is really cool when applied to more tame applications such as mass transportation, mining and even space travel.

[GenDBlade]

thats awesome

[Dinner_Time]

Cool!

[stewie]

damn!

[preludeman92]

I'm actually just a mechanically engineering Co-Op student. I can't wait to get to be a real engineer!

We're getting a contract from NASA in July to look into the feasablity of using this gun to launch small satelites.

[NAiL05]

That is so cool. I want one. lol. It would be pretty cool to launch satellites with these but wouldnt you need a large barrel of some sort. Depending on satellite size but oh well. Ha Ill let you guys figure that one out. Either way I want one lol.