Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Air Defense Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: Iron Dome Faces Bad Numbers
SYSOP    1/10/2013 5:35:56 AM
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
Pages: PREV  1 2 3
WarNerd       1/15/2013 1:36:54 PM
I think that we have a communications problem here. Your remarks frequently indicate that you are referring to a design generally classified as a mass driver, or electromagnetic catapult, not a rail gun.
1. Water droplets, alone, hit at Mach 10 would have profound kinetic effects on the solid that hit them. Aluminum sand would have a severe charge effect as well.
You said dust, I assumed similar to that used for paint pigment. Of course much larger sand size particles of aluminum would do more damage to the surface, but are unlikely to penetrate much because they vaporizes on impact. A multi-gram chunk of heavy metal, on the other hand, will punch deep into the weapon.
Dust has erosive effects. At those speeds the heat and charge transfer at contact is significant. This deforms the shape of the moving object and its surface insulator properties (specially one that requires a heat and EM shield). BOOM! Even water vapor is a significant contributor.  
So, does that means that ICBM’s can’t be used against targets under cloud cover?
 
What weight of dust or water droplets are needed to kill an RV? Won’t be much, possibly as little as 50 grams, but if you work out the mass to produce a small cloud big enough and dense enough kill an RV reliably it will be quite large.
< div="">
< div="">
2. Rail, stator, armature.
So which is it? And what was the cable reference to?
The stator: self-contained unit of the magnetic pick-up, consisting of a permanent magnet, an inductive winding, and the pick-up core; the stator can be a disc-shaped pole piece with stator tooth or a simple pole piece.
 
The rail: is a track guide for the armature. That is all. 
 
The armature: is the slug or the conductive object that carries the slug that completes the LINAC rail-gun electric circuit between the rails.
 
A rail-gun is a linear accelerator that uses rails NOT coils. It IS a mass driver.
So I guess neither reference was to a stator (no windings in a railgun)?
4. Pitting. That armature sparks as it moves down the rails. That is not just a simple contact short. The magnetic fields rotate.  
It is a lot more than sparks, papers on the subject say the surface of the rail is shows signs of repeated melting. The expulsion of vaporized rail material from the muzzle is a safety and environmental concern. One of the biggest problems was the tendency of the projectile to weld to the rails, which was overcome by using a plasma arc for propulsion, but which damages the rails directly.
The problem was pitting. 
 
A 23 year old report for a railgun operating at lower velocities and energy densities.
 
Quote    Reply
PREV  1 2 3



 Latest
 News 		  Most
 Read 		  Most
 Commented		  Hot
 Topics