Homemade Particle Accelerator: To the Extreme

I remember playing around with a Gauss Rifle when I was a kid.

Basically its a line of magnets and ball bearings that work like a rail gun I suppose.

Heres a link to a simple one.

www.scitoys.com...

The page also gives a little story on why it could not be a perpetual motion device.


What I was wondering is this.

At this point you realise that the larger the "rifle" the greater the speed right?

Say we build one of these, but to a larger scale, and we build it in a vaccuum tube ( for least air resistence, we still have friction to worry about)

I will split into two theories now.

Theory 1 - The straight line rail gun for sheer speed

You build the gauss rifle in a straight line, much like the toy example. You build it with the highest durability magnets possible. I wonder what type of speeds you could produce before the acceleration physically destroys the device (magnet breakage)

Theory 2 - The Electromagnetic Circle

Same principle, inside the vaccuum tube, but this time you use controlled electromagnets to propel the projectile. Im not sure if this is possible.. I think it is? Could you not build it so that the magnets are underneath the track and that ball never has to collide with the magnet? It is turned off and on in a controlled manner (laser?) Basically the first magnet atttracts the projectile, is shut off, and the next electromagnet is turned on and it attracts to there and so on and so on going in a circle. Now we have this in a vaccum tube we remove the air resistence. We thus have limitless speed ( air speed that is ) We still have friction. This principle uses only one projectile.

I think this is how a particle accelerator works. I could be wrong.

Basically either way, it will go as fast as it can, until it physically destroys itself ( and maybe bystanders )

Work on this theory if i am wrong.

Theory 1 - The straight line rail gun for sheer speed

You build the gauss rifle in a straight line, much like the toy example. You build it with the highest durability magnets possible. I wonder what type of speeds you could produce before the acceleration physically destroys the device (magnet breakage)

The Navy and Air Force are developing seperate 'kinetic energy' weapons that use this principle. The Navy version is a replacement for the Tomahawk. The Air Force version replaces nukes. The idea behind them is simple, a large tungsten rod flying at tremendous speeds that hits with the energy equal to a small meteroite. The Navy version is launched from a ship, of course. It will pack enough KE to destroy buildings and hardened bunkers. The Air Force version is a tungsten rod dropped from a satellite that hits with the impact force of a meteor or small comet. Total devistation like a nuke, but no radiation.

The problem you brought up is the same that the navy and Air Force is having. The rods that they use are tungsten to handle the high heat. They have fold-out fins for manuevering and just enough electronics onboard to enable GPS guidance. The problem is the sudden accelleration destroys the electronics at speeds that are too slow to be of any use for a kinetic energy weapon.

The Army has it's own version that is to be used as an anti-tank weapon. I don't know too much about that one.

Here's a few links:

Army

Navy

Navy

Air Force

Theory 2 - The Electromagnetic Circle

Same principle, inside the vaccuum tube, but this time you use controlled electromagnets to propel the projectile. Im not sure if this is possible.. I think it is? Could you not build it so that the magnets are underneath the track and that ball never has to collide with the magnet? It is turned off and on in a controlled manner (laser?) Basically the first magnet atttracts the projectile, is shut off, and the next electromagnet is turned on and it attracts to there and so on and so on going in a circle. Now we have this in a vaccum tube we remove the air resistence. We thus have limitless speed ( air speed that is ) We still have friction. This principle uses only one projectile.

This is how an electric motor works. You have a rotor, which is a perminent magnet on a rod, inside a stator, which is a series of coils wrapped around the rotor. Since the coils are wound seperate from each other, you can pulse them with electricity in a circle around the rotor. The rotor is attracted to one of the coils and moves to align it's magnetic field with the stator. Then when it is just about there, the electricity to that coil is switched off and the next coil is switched on, causing the rotor to move toward the second coil. This continues, the stators attracting the rotor in turn until the rotor has moved 360 degrees. Then the first stator coil fires again. The result is that the rotor continuously rotates, always trying to get aligned to the stators that switch on and off. Kind of like dangling a carrot in front of a horse.

I'm not sure how fast you could get a large object moving. This is the principle that particle accellerators use. They use electromagnets to attract and repel the molecules that move around the accelerator. If you think about the massive size and energy consumtion required to accellerate something like one atom of gold, I'd say you couldn't feasibly get a large object moving very fast.

with the straight line gauss rifle, speed and power is easily created.


look at the .gif example on the site i provided.


in a split moment its kinetic energy quadruples.

im just wondering how far you could go before your device fails.

im not talking about using tiny little magnets, but something bigger, stronger, anything.

yeah i guess the circle idea sort of is like a motor. im quite sure it would work. when they acccelerate a partile, its like insane speeds. im not sure how its done.

im thinking of a steel ball bearing. like the size of a marble being used. remember it never loses force... ie.. its never "shot" like in the gauss rifle. it just keeps going in circles accelerating.

it would be way to hard to make.

BTW the idea of dropping the item for the bomb impact is not very smart. how do they plan on reloading ?


also something i should have mentioned. I seen someone build an accelerator gun that is charged to an extrememly high voltage and it uses electromagnetics. i remember him explaining the velocities and voltages. it was insane, but not very practical.


i cant remember where i saw it. i think on daily planet (discovery)

If your in to that kind of stuff, here's a good link for ya:

www.angelfire.com...

This guy is really into high voltage. He shows how to build a rail gun on this page.

The guy also made his own working tesla coil out of stuff he found dumpster diving. He makes his own plasma globes and loves electronically-triggered potato guns.

Edit:

The Air Force system uses a pair of two satellites, one to provide guidance and the second to store and launch the rods. A reload would be launching another satellite.

The acceleration of your circular design would be based on the speed at which you could energize and de-energize the coils around it. It would be limited by latency in the electronics - the amount of time it takes to switch the current from coil to coil, the time it takes the magnetic field of each coil to build and collapse, etc. You'd run into a situation where the collapsing fields would still pull backward on the ball bearing, limiting it's speed.

[edit on 15-4-2005 by PeanutButterJellyTime]

Ahaha awesome! I

gauss rifle is a cheap rail gun.

im only interested in see how far one of these things could be pushed before it destructed itself.

would be cool, although you wouldnt even see it with your eyes....

coilgun actually.
Railguns and coilguns operate on two similar yet very different principles.
Seems everytime someone talks about railguns, they're really talking about coilguns.
Railguns pump an immense current through the projectile itself prior to and during acceleration via coils... Im talkin 50 MEGA-Amps. The speed these things produce is INSANE.
Coilguns do not charge the projectile and rely solely on the sequencially energized coils to drive the projectile.
When I was a wee lad I built a small coilgun that was very simple.. 3 coils, pvc barrel, 3 10,000uf 50v caps charged with a rectified 110v signal dropped to 35v (mmm amps). IR trips, ack. Could bury a nail in a tree a dozen feet away but getting the timing just right was very hairy. If I could do it again, I would have used a variable timer network. 8bit counters and stuff.

reply to post by Dulcimer


no once it gets to just below the speed of light it cant go any faster so it gains more mass (e=mc2)
it wont destroy itself