The document describes a student project to build a small-scale model of a rail gun to launch model aircraft. The rail gun works by using high electrical currents to accelerate a conductive projectile along conductive rails without explosives. The students researched how rail guns work and are designing their model to be safe, using aluminum rails and a small power source. They have encountered issues with dimensions, wires disconnecting, and the projectile not launching, but have been troubleshooting solutions such as premeasuring, checking wire connections, and testing different projectiles and positions. Their most recent test produced a spark across the nail projectile.

1. By Richard Howell
Kevin Ryland
Christopher Cox
Yihan Pang
Bryce Langlotz

2.  Our design that we are choosing to create is a rail-
gun transformed to become a launcher for plans off
aircraft carrier.
 This is unique in that instead of trying to shoot the
projectile as fast as we can, as we would with a gun,
we are trying to control the speed and the angle to
allow the planes to function safely once the initial
power is lost.

3.  Lack of a propellant!
 No explosions take place!
 Relatively safer!

4.  The idea as created by a french
inventor names Louis Octave
Fauchon-Villeplee in April of 1919.
 The orginial name of the rail gun
was the “Electric Apparatus for
Propelling Projectiles.”
 This name was shortened to “rail-
gun” later because the rails that are
the main section of the device.

5.  This idea was found by German Ordnance Officer
Joachim Hansler during WWII.
 These guns were never built as these theories were
finally defined enough to allow the construction in
late 1944.
 By this time the Germans were on the defensive
and could not spare the resources to make a
prototype.

6.  In 1947, a report was done
proving that the only problem
the Germans would have had
was that each gun would have
needed more power than is
currently being used by
Virginia Tech.
 In 1950, Sir Mark Oliphant
build a 500 Megajoule
Homopolar Generator that was
used as the power source for a
large scale rail-gun that was
build and was used as a
instrument of research and
science.

7.  Safety is paramount in this
project. While we are creating a
launcher we only launch under
very controlled circumstances.
 Heat is also a main issue. The
electric current going through
the wire will create so much heat
that the rails might melt. This is
why we are using aluminum
which does not melt as easily as
other metals would.
 We also need both the rails and
the Projectile to be conductive for
this launcher to work. This
means the material that can be
used are limited.

8. 

9. 

10.  We researched online and found different sites
which showed us the fundamentals of the rail-
gun and took different ideas for our own.
 We also decided we would make this gun
relatively small to other rail guns. This will just
be a model type thing not the real large scale
launcher.

11.  The power source is capacitors from old cameras wired
in parrallel.
 The base is wood for price reasons
 The rails are aluminum because it does not melt easily
and conducts electricity very easily
 The wires we used basic wires and we used a bread
board to wire it all together.

12.  We put all the wires and
sauntered thread wires to
solid wires on the bread
board to connect all the
capacitors in parallel.
 We cut the base to be a
triangle set up at an angle of
45 degrees to get the max
distance from our shot.
 To do this we found that we
had to cut our 18 in boards so
that the base and height is
12.7in, while our slanted
board can stay 18inches.

13.  Doing the original calculations we did
not consider the thickness of the boards.
 There was a problem with the wires the
first time we set up the bread board.
 We had a problem with getting the
current to discharge. The indicator light
showed up so we knew the charge we
there we just could not get it to
discharge.
 The energy from the source is being
dissipated by the length of wires.
 The nail is being welded to the sides of
the aluminum rails when we discharge
all the electricity.
 The Projectile was the wrong material.

14.  For the problem with the
dimensions, we premeasured the
dimensions and re-evaluated the
lengths.
 For the problem of the wires we
took out the capacitors and checked
and found a disconnect in the wires.
 For the problem of discharge we
took out the switch to test if that
was the problem and found a
disconnect from switch to board.
 We changed the projectile to
aluminum. We positioned the
projectile in different ways and tried
different sizes but could not get it to
shoot yet.

15.  With our first test we got a spark across the
nail. The nail was blackened by the shock and
seemed to be melted into the aluminum
slightly. The nail was harder to get out than
before.