If you set the length in F=ilB to the length of the rail gun then you will get the force on the rails which pushes them outwards, not the force on the projectile. The length should be set to be the portion of the projectile length, the distance between the rails, to get the force on the projectile. Just for anyone wanting to build one :)
Thank you for the excellent primer on railguns. Great introduction to the concept. One point I would correct. The force that moves the projectile forward is the current crossing the sabo. Thumb pointing toward negative rail, fingers curled toward back end of / start of rails, force pushing back, forces projectile forward.
Also the forces on the rails push the rails apart, not together. Still, apart from the physics errors at 2:52 and 4:43, a well presented and watchable video.
2nd explanation is better but little bit wrong i think “the right hand law” explanation he had to say that the induced force are made only when magnetic field hit the current wire not just made automatically
Thanks for the video, wasn't perfect, but a great job non-the-less. I was actually thinking about alternative ways for rockets to get into space aside from burning tons of fuel. It was a terrific presentation and I urge you on making many more. 👍
I am kind of concerned about g-forces being shot out a rail gun. 8,000 feet per millisecond would turn biological material to mush unless you had a inertia dampening system.
There is no need in mentioning "positive" or "negative" poles. In general huge capacitors are used as the power sources, and during their discharge(i.e. the projectile acceleration process) electromagnetic oscillations occur, and "the poles" periodically change, and it does not change the Amper's force diraction(it is obvious for someone who knows electromagnetism on a school level), and yes, Amper's force when we are talking about solid projectiles being accelerated. Lorenz force is the force which acts on the charged particles(in ionised gas for example) in magnetic filed.
Well, unfortunately, this is not how the right-hand rule works, or how a rail gun fires. I can rotate my hand in any direction, keeping my thumb in the direction of current and my fingers properly oriented around the wire in the direction of the magnetic field. Therefore, the force can be in any direction. You all have good pictures though.
Very informative, been looking for a simpler explanation of the lorentz force. It seems like a sort of electromagnetic pressure when used in a railgun. Is that a stupid way of looking at it?
Have you ever thought about using super conducting magnets which utilize a super cooling method to counter the heating issue as well as possibly add extra force to the projectile?
an area of study that I'm looking into is customizing the permeability and permittivity of the projectile material to greatly increase the speed of the projectile.
Great video Zack, do some more, and mention the g force that will kill a human, so these rail rocket guns will either be short launched and unmanned, or longer launched to not crush the pilot by the g-forces generated. Eighty seconds to achieve mach 8 would be a really long launch rail, but sounds feasible on Mars. Lastly, throw some equations on the board. Good job and thanks for your hard work on the educational and entertaining video.
This was a very informative video! I'm just curious from a physics standpoint i'm sort of a novice.. but whats to stop the forces from the current and magnetic fields on the armature from launching it either up, or down, or backwards along the railing. If you could explain what or how exactly the magnetic forces and current force the round precisely where you want it to go, i'd greatly appreciate it. I'm super curious about it, and don't have enough of a background in physics to understand.
Yeah... so the rails are just there to supply the current along the projectile's path. You're right, there is an electromotive force applied inwards to the projectile in the barrel, and if there was nothing stopping it above or below, eventually... some external force (like asymmetric frictional forces in the barrel caused by material imperfections) would add a vertical component to the acceleration on said projectile and launch it up or down. I'm thinking there is probably a more sophisticated "barrel" involved that has a top and bottom.
Force, current and the magnetic fields of the rails are all interrelated and the force generated on the projectile is always perpendicular to both the magnetic field and the current. Since the current is always going to be flowing 'left ' to 'right' from the positive to the negative rail that gives you one direction. The magnetic fields from the rails move in a circular motion around the rail clockwise in one, counter clockwise in the other, since the slug is always directly between the rails this means the fields are going to oriented 'up' relative to the slug. So now we have two vectors forming a cross with the slug in the middle and two directions that are perpendicular to both, forward and backward down the rails. Since the current is generally so high that if the slug were motionless between the rails when introduced it would become welded in place by the heat generated the slug is accelerated by some other means before it enter the rails. This is what decides which direction the slug goes in the rail gun. Hope that helps and wasn't too confusing! Source: current college physics student that just studied electromagnetism in class.
The problems they are facing with real guns are..... you need basically a nuclear reactor and generator to supply the electrical power needed to propel a projectile faster and further than gunpowder....and the rails are burnt pretty quickly with that much energy used in such a short time. The plasma is created from not only melting the solid metal projectile but also the rails...so no it is not yet cheaper. The goal is ....but not at this time. Imagine copper heated past a solid, past a liquid, past a copper gas....copper plasma....very hot indeed.
Good question - in practice a railgun barrel needs a guidance mechanism, such as solid supporting insulators above and below the rails, to stop the projectile from being accelerated up or down and away from the centreline of the rails. In a simple railgun, the field B is generated by the driving current I, so forces in the form of F = I * B * L always point in the same direction. Changing the sign of I then gives F = (-B) * (-I) * L, so the two minus signs cancel out.
I think you should add a cooling system like the ones nuclear subs use, as for the wrapping try using structural designs and different Alloyed combinations, power source we have yet to really use the ocean Currents for the Generator, that would produce more then enough energy. Just my thoughts
Thanks for you video ! but why the 2 purple forces(5:06) don't simply cancel eachother ? I don't understand how a "right going force" could magically appear...
The force experienced by the conductive case holding the projectile is the Lorentz force. The electrons in the case are moving perpendicular to the magnetic field produced by the rails, therefore experience a force in the direction of the rails (moving the case and projectile along).
You left a crucial thing out and everyone misses it. Show also the direction of magnetic field on the projectile as the current flows through it and see what you get.
Why couldn't make the sabo out of a superconducting metal and cool the whole apparatus using liquid hydrogen or helium causing the round to magnetically levitate, thus both reducing friction and keeping the railgun from overheating. To me this seems like a no brainer cause metal is more conductive at lower temperatures anyways. If I was designing one this is how I would do it. I would also not make the rails in 2 straight lines, instead I would spiral them keeping the distance between them equal to the end of the barrel. Spiraling them would allow you to shorten the barrel and at the same time it would impart spin to the round making it fly straighter and longer. For all I know this is how the military already does it.
Hei guys. Awesome video. But I believe you guys made a huge mistake. I have one correction to make. L is not the length of the rails.. It is the length of the projecttile. The lenght of the rails has no influence to the force/speed pushing forward. The rails actually try to ecape each other that is why they need to be very secured to a base so they cant bent or push away from each other. Froce is only made from that little piece (L). So with the hooked up current the force is actually going the other way then you guys drawed down.
Just a minor nitpick :) the "length" of the projectile is actually it's width ie the separation of the rails. You probably knew that, but I thought it would be nice to clarify :)
Anybody hear about tesla working on a way to make capacitors more efficient to reaplace batteries on all of future electronics and power requirement issues like this
1:26 Actually, the electric current does not go through the positive terminal first, it is the opposite. Dc current flows from Negative to Positive. (we had originally thought or assumed it flowed pos to neg). 'Convention' does not change fact, we found that the earth is not flat, so we stopped making maps and navigation tools for a flat earth. 'Electron Flow is an inconvenient truth' I'm not advocating book burning. But there should come a time where we start using electron flow instead of 'conventional' theory.
Yes but convention say's positive to negative. If you use electron flow, then flemmings handed rules don't work, and semiconductor nomenclature becomes illogical.
😈 you are wrong little monster. The fastest a man ever went was when I seen my ex wife who is a runway model out at the airport coming to try and get us back together. 😳
So it has comparable range to that of a cruise missile???....now assuming a missile has on-board circuitry to accomodate the Earth's curvature so it can "hit" the target....just how the hell does the rail gun "projectile" adjust it's comparable length of travel to navigate the curve of the Earth in order to strike its target..???.
@Dennis Ryan Same way a conventional artillery shell does. The gunners figure the rotation and curvature of the earth into their aiming. In fact, the first analog computers were developed during WWII to help battleship gunnery crews calculate all the necessary things in order to fire over the horizon and still hit their targets, especially when they might be other moving ships.
Something clearly doesn't add up. The so called Lorentz force can not be in the direction of current, be it positive or negative. Now having that in mind which direction should the projectile travel. I can not be parallel to the them rails. I think you have a hick up there... 🙂 Think about this: Place your right hand in front of you. Palm facing up towards the ceiling, ( call it positive Z axis) this is the direction of wait for iiiit, not magnetic field, your palm shows North of the magnet facing up. That is much more clear. This means there is magnet underndeath your hand with it North pole facing up. Now your fingers are straight ahead of you pointing away from you, (call this positive Y axis) This shows the direction of current in whatever conductor. Now your thumb, yes your right hand thumb pointing to the right ( call this positive X axis), is the force on what? The force on the wire. Did you catch this, the force is on the wire that is carrying the current. This mean what? The projectile must be the wire that is carrying current and the force ( the magnetic North pole that must be orthogonal in Z direction) if the projectile is to move to the right and the current must move straight ahead from you towards the page on that wire. Therefore the magnetic North pole must face up from the bottom and you better get the south of the magnet up above for more intensity. Do you understand? And you must have positive rail at your hand and negative away from you on the projectile itself as a conductor. Now those rails are nothing but keeping the projectile in line. These dryings are way deceptive and general. it means nothing. Also there is tremendous repulsive force between the two rails, if they are carrying lots of current for instance. So they better be mounted secure.
12 seconds in and you're already wrong. The first darn thing you say. People regularly travel faster than the X-15 (about 5 times faster) when they take rockets into orbit. They're ultimately going about Mach 33 when they reach orbit.
Your theory is completely wrong. 3:58 The magnetic field is circular and the force is always perpendicular to the field. You need an actual object on which the force would be exerted. 4:20 Two conductive lines with current flowing in opposite direction push away from one another - the force is repulsive, not attractive. 4:56 the mechanical sandwiching or "squeezing the projectile out" is also wrong. For the same reason as last point. Railgun would work even if the projectile was just a conducting stick placed on top of the two power lines with no mechanical forces working on them. If the squeezing theory was correct the projectile would just be welded onto the rails. The drawing on the left actually gives the correct picture. The real reason why the railgun works is that the two lines produce a magnetic field in the same direction in relation to the current flowing through the projectile (into the whiteboard) which is why the resulting force is perpendicular and sends the projectile along the rails. I don't know what level you are but I hope this isn't a university.
If they are high-school then they are very well articulated and they even know something useful. If they were engineers - I'd say they could do better in politics :o)
If you set the length in F=ilB to the length of the rail gun then you will get the force on the rails which pushes them outwards, not the force on the projectile. The length should be set to be the portion of the projectile length, the distance between the rails, to get the force on the projectile. Just for anyone wanting to build one :)
Thanks! We actually built something like that in our physics class recently, though not as powerful, for, I believe, obvious reasons 😂
Thank you for the excellent primer on railguns. Great introduction to the concept.
One point I would correct. The force that moves the projectile forward is the current crossing the sabo.
Thumb pointing toward negative rail, fingers curled toward back end of / start of rails, force pushing back, forces projectile forward.
Also the forces on the rails push the rails apart, not together. Still, apart from the physics errors at 2:52 and 4:43, a well presented and watchable video.
Excellent, just so good, on point, clear and detailed at the same time. Thanks!
2nd explanation is better but little bit wrong i think
“the right hand law” explanation he had to say that the induced force are made only when magnetic field hit the current wire not just made automatically
Thank you both of you!!!!
Thanks for the excellent presentation
I couldn't find any other videos that fully explained how the railgun works
Why use only rail and not anything else
@@harshadbariya4136 ??
Can you understand my question or not ?
@@harshadbariya4136 No, explain
It's a video about how railguns work, what do you mean "why only use rail?"
I’m a novice at home and I understood that really well. Thank you
indeed
Doing a final research paper for Physics II on railguns. This helped a lot!
How'd it go?
@@Fintank_ Pretty good if my memory serves me correctly.
@@kylef634 and what do you do know, if you don't mind me asking?
Thanks for the video, wasn't perfect, but a great job non-the-less. I was actually thinking about alternative ways for rockets to get into space aside from burning tons of fuel. It was a terrific presentation and I urge you on making many more. 👍
I am kind of concerned about g-forces being shot out a rail gun.
8,000 feet per millisecond would turn biological material to mush unless you had a inertia dampening system.
It might have to be a low accelerating rocket, but nonetheless it’d be awesome.
Damn I was thinking the same thing too
@@kenkarish826 at the very least we could possibly send supplies or satellites to space
These forces were noticed by physicist Fred Railgun. Hence the name
Thank you! Excellent presentation 👏👌
There is no need in mentioning "positive" or "negative" poles. In general huge capacitors are used as the power sources, and during their discharge(i.e. the projectile acceleration process) electromagnetic oscillations occur, and "the poles" periodically change, and it does not change the Amper's force diraction(it is obvious for someone who knows electromagnetism on a school level), and yes, Amper's force when we are talking about solid projectiles being accelerated. Lorenz force is the force which acts on the charged particles(in ionised gas for example) in magnetic filed.
Im going to build a railgun
Awesome presentation !!!!
Dude im looking for one of those two. A way to amplyfy currents and multiplyin the electricity at the same time .
Well, unfortunately, this is not how the right-hand rule works, or how a rail gun fires. I can rotate my hand in any direction, keeping my thumb in the direction of current and my fingers properly oriented around the wire in the direction of the magnetic field. Therefore, the force can be in any direction. You all have good pictures though.
Very informative, been looking for a simpler explanation of the lorentz force. It seems like a sort of electromagnetic pressure when used in a railgun. Is that a stupid way of looking at it?
Have you ever thought about using super conducting magnets which utilize a super cooling method to counter the heating issue as well as possibly add extra force to the projectile?
an area of study that I'm looking into is customizing the permeability and permittivity of the projectile material to greatly increase the speed of the projectile.
Easy understanding thanks
good presentation!
Thank you
Well done.
Great video Zack, do some more, and mention the g force that will kill a human, so these rail rocket guns will either be short launched and unmanned, or longer launched to not crush the pilot by the g-forces generated. Eighty seconds to achieve mach 8 would be a really long launch rail, but sounds feasible on Mars. Lastly, throw some equations on the board. Good job and thanks for your hard work on the educational and entertaining video.
menkeyman
I heard that if you would put the Human into water you would be fine But I have really no idea how that works
I agree. Do more videos
This was a very informative video! I'm just curious from a physics standpoint i'm sort of a novice.. but whats to stop the forces from the current and magnetic fields on the armature from launching it either up, or down, or backwards along the railing. If you could explain what or how exactly the magnetic forces and current force the round precisely where you want it to go, i'd greatly appreciate it. I'm super curious about it, and don't have enough of a background in physics to understand.
Yeah... so the rails are just there to supply the current along the projectile's path. You're right, there is an electromotive force applied inwards to the projectile in the barrel, and if there was nothing stopping it above or below, eventually... some external force (like asymmetric frictional forces in the barrel caused by material imperfections) would add a vertical component to the acceleration on said projectile and launch it up or down. I'm thinking there is probably a more sophisticated "barrel" involved that has a top and bottom.
Force, current and the magnetic fields of the rails are all interrelated and the force generated on the projectile is always perpendicular to both the magnetic field and the current. Since the current is always going to be flowing 'left ' to 'right' from the positive to the negative rail that gives you one direction. The magnetic fields from the rails move in a circular motion around the rail clockwise in one, counter clockwise in the other, since the slug is always directly between the rails this means the fields are going to oriented 'up' relative to the slug. So now we have two vectors forming a cross with the slug in the middle and two directions that are perpendicular to both, forward and backward down the rails. Since the current is generally so high that if the slug were motionless between the rails when introduced it would become welded in place by the heat generated the slug is accelerated by some other means before it enter the rails. This is what decides which direction the slug goes in the rail gun. Hope that helps and wasn't too confusing! Source: current college physics student that just studied electromagnetism in class.
This is such a fantastic explaination!
The problems they are facing with real guns are..... you need basically a nuclear reactor and generator to supply the electrical power needed to propel a projectile faster and further than gunpowder....and the rails are burnt pretty quickly with that much energy used in such a short time. The plasma is created from not only melting the solid metal projectile but also the rails...so no it is not yet cheaper. The goal is ....but not at this time. Imagine copper heated past a solid, past a liquid, past a copper gas....copper plasma....very hot indeed.
Good question - in practice a railgun barrel needs a guidance mechanism, such as solid supporting insulators above and below the rails, to stop the projectile from being accelerated up or down and away from the centreline of the rails.
In a simple railgun, the field B is generated by the driving current I, so forces in the form of F = I * B * L always point in the same direction. Changing the sign of I then gives F = (-B) * (-I) * L, so the two minus signs cancel out.
I think you should add a cooling system like the ones nuclear subs use, as for the wrapping try using structural designs and different Alloyed combinations, power source we have yet to really use the ocean Currents for the Generator, that would produce more then enough energy. Just my thoughts
Good explanation
so like a surfer on a wave? the surfer being the projectile and the upward/downward forces of the wave be the current/force?
C M thank you your surfer explanation is perfect. Dean Australia
👍👍👍
Thanks for you video !
but why the 2 purple forces(5:06) don't simply cancel eachother ? I don't understand how a "right going force" could magically appear...
The force experienced by the conductive case holding the projectile is the Lorentz force. The electrons in the case are moving
perpendicular to the magnetic field produced by the rails, therefore
experience a force in the direction of the rails (moving the case and
projectile along).
@@John13verse35 you sir are a genius
You left a crucial thing out and everyone misses it. Show also the direction of magnetic field on the projectile as the current flows through it and see what you get.
$1.5 million / $25,000 equals 60. Not 6.
Was just a bout to comment that.
Our politicians would say, that one Zero can´t make much difference :-)
Mark Kennedy had me thinking I failed arithmetic, too.
6:40 I was going to comment on that too
sometimes happen in lecture...
ok so for us dumb people... this works basically like a more complicated fly wheel blaster
Why couldn't make the sabo out of a superconducting metal and cool the whole apparatus using liquid hydrogen or helium causing the round to magnetically levitate, thus both reducing friction and keeping the railgun from overheating. To me this seems like a no brainer cause metal is more conductive at lower temperatures anyways. If I was designing one this is how I would do it. I would also not make the rails in 2 straight lines, instead I would spiral them keeping the distance between them equal to the end of the barrel. Spiraling them would allow you to shorten the barrel and at the same time it would impart spin to the round making it fly straighter and longer. For all I know this is how the military already does it.
buena informacion del railgun
Thx bhai
Wait what about the simplest magnetic train? The armature doesn't have its own magnetical fields but still work...I'm so confused...
Hello .Why does my projectile boil between the rails
Hei guys. Awesome video. But I believe you guys made a huge mistake.
I have one correction to make. L is not the length of the rails.. It is the length of the projecttile. The lenght of the rails has no influence to the force/speed pushing forward. The rails actually try to ecape each other that is why they need to be very secured to a base so they cant bent or push away from each other. Froce is only made from that little piece (L). So with the hooked up current the force is actually going the other way then you guys drawed down.
Just a minor nitpick :) the "length" of the projectile is actually it's width ie the separation of the rails. You probably knew that, but I thought it would be nice to clarify :)
noice
Anybody hear about tesla working on a way to make capacitors more efficient to reaplace batteries on all of future electronics and power requirement issues like this
Why this railgun principle donot use for future transportation
I like his shirt
Ok so how do we get by the radiation belt surround the earth,and why have we not been to the moon since the first time?
هذه فكرة رائعه
how to calculate magnetic field in f=I*L*M
She forgot the capacitors...
I gave it a "like" ...because i did.
1:26
Actually, the electric current does not
go through the positive terminal first, it
is the opposite. Dc current flows from
Negative to Positive. (we had originally
thought or assumed it flowed pos to neg).
'Convention' does not change fact, we
found that the earth is not flat, so we stopped
making maps and navigation tools for a flat
earth. 'Electron Flow is an inconvenient truth'
I'm not advocating book burning. But there
should come a time where we start using
electron flow instead of 'conventional' theory.
Yes but convention say's positive to negative. If you use electron flow, then flemmings handed rules don't work, and semiconductor nomenclature becomes illogical.
Kinda like the gundum anime
This video is just a cartoon. No physics.
😈 you are wrong little monster. The fastest a man ever went was when I seen my ex wife who is a runway model out at the airport coming to try and get us back together. 😳
So it has comparable range to that of a cruise missile???....now assuming a missile has on-board circuitry to accomodate the Earth's curvature so it can "hit" the target....just how the hell does the rail gun "projectile" adjust it's comparable length of travel to navigate the curve of the Earth in order to strike its target..???.
@Dennis Ryan Same way a conventional artillery shell does. The gunners figure the rotation and curvature of the earth into their aiming. In fact, the first analog computers were developed during WWII to help battleship gunnery crews calculate all the necessary things in order to fire over the horizon and still hit their targets, especially when they might be other moving ships.
Something clearly doesn't add up.
The so called Lorentz force can not be in the direction of current, be it positive or negative.
Now having that in mind which direction should the projectile travel. I can not be parallel to the them rails. I think you have a hick up there... 🙂
Think about this:
Place your right hand in front of you. Palm facing up towards the ceiling, ( call it positive Z axis) this is the direction of wait for iiiit, not magnetic field, your palm shows North of the magnet facing up. That is much more clear. This means there is magnet underndeath your hand with it North pole facing up. Now your fingers are straight ahead of you pointing away from you, (call this positive Y axis) This shows the direction of current in whatever conductor. Now your thumb, yes your right hand thumb pointing to the right ( call this positive X axis), is the force on what? The force on the wire.
Did you catch this, the force is on the wire that is carrying the current.
This mean what?
The projectile must be the wire that is carrying current and the force ( the magnetic North pole that must be orthogonal in Z direction) if the projectile is to move to the right and the current must move straight ahead from you towards the page on that wire.
Therefore the magnetic North pole must face up from the bottom and you better get the south of the magnet up above for more intensity. Do you understand?
And you must have positive rail at your hand and negative away from you on the projectile itself as a conductor.
Now those rails are nothing but keeping the projectile in line.
These dryings are way deceptive and general. it means nothing. Also there is tremendous repulsive force between the two rails, if they are carrying lots of current for instance. So they better be mounted secure.
12 seconds in and you're already wrong. The first darn thing you say. People regularly travel faster than the X-15 (about 5 times faster) when they take rockets into orbit. They're ultimately going about Mach 33 when they reach orbit.
60x not 6x :D
Your theory is completely wrong. 3:58 The magnetic field is circular and the force is always perpendicular to the field. You need an actual object on which the force would be exerted.
4:20 Two conductive lines with current flowing in opposite direction push away from one another - the force is repulsive, not attractive.
4:56 the mechanical sandwiching or "squeezing the projectile out" is also wrong. For the same reason as last point. Railgun would work even if the projectile was just a conducting stick placed on top of the two power lines with no mechanical forces working on them. If the squeezing theory was correct the projectile would just be welded onto the rails.
The drawing on the left actually gives the correct picture. The real reason why the railgun works is that the two lines produce a magnetic field in the same direction in relation to the current flowing through the projectile (into the whiteboard) which is why the resulting force is perpendicular and sends the projectile along the rails. I don't know what level you are but I hope this isn't a university.
Later he divides $25,000 into $1.5 million and gets six. Not that this couldn't happen in actual practice. 😞
Why is this information on you tube
Because everyone already knows about it.
Freedom of information
If they are high-school then they are very well articulated and they even know something useful. If they were engineers - I'd say they could do better in politics :o)
Why she got a beard tho😂
pepe da fuck boi don’t be an ass
Video full of errors. Talks about launching stuff from the lower gravity on mars using a railgun and a scram jet that requires oxygen to run.
Oxygen can be fed in as they did on the shuttle.
how the fuck is the length on the rails