Railguns: Powerful new weapon or expensive dud?
Have you heard of electromagnetic railguns? They are powerful agile weapons that are used in the military. But how do they work and how were they conceived?
Railguns are different from conventional weapons because the latter typically use the pressure from ignited gunpowder to propel projectiles out of a barrel, sending them flying on a ballistic trajectory.
Railguns, on the other hand, use electricity and magnetism to accelerate projectiles down a set of rails at hypersonic speeds.
Projectiles launched via railgun generally reach speeds of around 5,500 mph (8,800 km/h). For comparison, the fastest bullets can travel around just 1,800 mph (2,900 km/h).
In fact, railguns deliver projectiles at such speeds that there’s usually no need for the projectile to detonate when it hits its target to further the destruction.
Railguns function by using electric currents. Parallel coils, composed of conductive metal, such as copper, make up the two sides of the inside of a railgun.
The two rails act like wires, in which a magnetic field circulates around each rail.
As a result, the projectile experiences a force known as the Lorentz force, which is directed perpendicularly to the magnetic field and to the direction of the current flowing across the armature. This force propels the projectile out at stunning speeds.
That’s how these weapons manage to be so speedy. If you want to know more details on exactly how these weapons function, then do not miss this video.
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