choke3860@ttardis.UUCP (S Patrick Gallaty) (04/19/88)
Hello, my name is S Patrick Gallaty and I am currently working on an experiment. Some friends and I came up with an amusing possibility for a method of motivating an object along a gauss 'wave.' Imagine a tube of some length with adjoining coils that surround it along it's entire length. Each coil is ganged together with a number of other coils to produce a number of circuits (4, 8?) that are each some degree out of sync with one another. The entire electro-mechanism is fed by a voltage-controlled-oscillator that compensates for the accelleration of the object within the tube to provide maximum contribution of effort. If someone would be so kind as to point us in the right direction as to the formulas involved, or work that has been done in the past along these lines, we would be highly appreciative. "The Neon Brain knows what you want, and doesn't give it to you." - I
doug_rands_merritt@cup.portal.com (04/20/88)
I suggest you check the literature for particle accellerators, especially linear accellerators. There's lots of good stuff there. What you're asking for wasn't 100% clear to me, but...I recall an article in a 1967 issue of Popular Science that showed a magnetically propelled submarine, about 10 feet long, that worked via (I think) the "Lorentz effect". One set of coils set up a magnetic field in the conducting sea water, another set set up an oscillating field opposed to the first set, and off it went at about 1/2 mph. They specifically said it wouldn't work in fresh water due to the lack of conductivity. I've always wondered if you could do something similar using the magnetic field of the earth as the first field. Doug
todd@uop.edu (Dr. Nethack) (04/22/88)
The magnetic propulsion of a projectile has been done already. If you look into the back of "Radio Electronics" and look for "Information Unlimited" you can get plans, or a kit. I have their address at home, but at present I am in the lab. If you cannot find it, I will post. They are fun to use. and *are not* *fire* arms --think of the possibilities.. on the other hand... don't!!
emcalc@sugar.UUCP (William M. Schmidt) (04/22/88)
What you have described can certainly be done. A young man here in Houston built such a device and did very well at a science fair that I recently judged. The main formula that you use is, of course the Lorentz Force Law ( F = iL x B). You'll probably find that your biggest problem will be the coils overheating. As they get hot their resistance goes up and the voltage required to drive the projectile goes up.