Gauss Accelerator

Published on 19 May 2022. Written by Bheru Singh

About the project

A guass accelerator or a coil gun is a device that uses a magnetic field to launch a ferromagnetic projectile. These accelerators are stored with a high amount of charge using capacitors. Basically, these are used to accelerate ferromagnetic projectiles. These accelerators are also known as Coil gun.

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The world’s first coil gun was developed and patented by Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland in 1904 and later Virgil Rigsby developed an further advanced coilgun which was used like a machine gun.

These guns use the Lorentz force. Basically, these guns work on the principle of induction and repulsion. The structure of the coil gun is very simple. Single stage or multi-stage coils depending on the requirement are placed coaxially and the path of the projectile lies in central axis.

Basically operational parameters involve Lorentz force, electromagnetic induction, magnetic attraction. The current is passed through the coil which creates magnetic flux. These fluxes are manipulated to accelerate the projectile using the available magnetic forces, basically different repulsion and attraction forces cause the motion and if the repulsion and attraction forces are same then the projectile would be motionless.

Once the projectile is at the center, the electromagnet is switched off. Photo-sensitive sensors are used to sense the location of the projectile and turn the circuit off which makes to travel to the destination point at a faster and exit the coil gun. Low induction copper coils are used.

These coilguns have a vast amount of application both in weaponry and non-weaponry applications. These guns may be used to launch a projectile and other weapons at a very faster rate eliminating the usage of propulsions and chemical power but these have their own disadvantage like high power capacitors are necessary, electrocution, errors in accuracy of launch. NASA is planning to design a coil gun based launcher to launch its mission, catapults etc.

Kit required to develop Gauss Accelerator:

• Coil
• Electromagnets
• Tube
• Projectile
• Power Source

Technologies you will learn by working on Gauss Accelerator:

• Electromagnet
• Sensor
• Projectiles
• flow meter

Any Questions?