2nd year Eng.student trying to build a railgun. Verify or modify please

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SUMMARY

A second-year engineering student is developing a railgun designed to launch a projectile weighing between 20-40 grams at speeds of approximately 400 km/h. The project utilizes a capacitor bank, where the capacitance and voltage of each capacitor can be manually adjusted. The simulation provided in an Excel file includes user-input fields and calculates the necessary current and mass to achieve the desired launch velocity. The design assumes the use of 3-6 capacitors in parallel to manage resistance effectively.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of electrical engineering principles, specifically capacitor functionality.
  • Familiarity with Excel for simulation and data input.
  • Knowledge of projectile dynamics and physics related to railgun technology.
  • Basic skills in circuit design and analysis.
NEXT STEPS
  • Research capacitor bank design and optimization techniques.
  • Study the physics of railgun operation and projectile acceleration.
  • Explore advanced Excel functions for simulation modeling.
  • Investigate safety protocols for high-voltage experiments.
USEFUL FOR

This discussion is beneficial for engineering students, hobbyists in electromagnetics, and anyone interested in building or understanding railgun technology and its underlying principles.

Fr1ki
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Hey all

Im trying to build a small railgun capable of launching a projectile(20-40g) to about 400km/h.

Attached is a excel file. It is a sort of simulation. Cells in red must get values from the table. Cells in Blue must be typed in by user. Cells in Green list the Current/Mass needed to acieve desired values.

This all makes a lot more sense with the simulator.

Thank You!
 

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Kind of forgot about the user friendliness.

The gun will make use of a capasitor bank. The capasitance and voltage of each of the caps can be set manually. The resistance is in a column. It seems very low, but it is assumed that between 3-6 caps are used in parrallel.
 

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