Magnetic Acceleration Cannons (MAC) generally are found on most ships. As these are cheaper and easier to produce than energy weapons, it makes them a favourite of many manufacturers.

MAC guns can be anywhere from single, to 100 stage weapons. Each stage consists of an electromagnet system.

An electromagnet system consists of a set of dump capacitors, an electromagnet, and a set of bleed off capacitors. The two sets of capacitors are essential to maintaining the gun in any prolonged use. Initially, the dump capacitors will slowly charge, and when the time comes to fire, the various stages will, in succession, dump on the electricity, rapidly creating a massive magnetic field, and then, just before the projectile passes, they will dump the electricity into the waiting capacitors to be recycled into the next round.

The reason for this cycling of magnets is the tendency for magnets to exert their fields in all directions, meaning, that if the magnets do not power down before the slug passes, they will then begin working to slow the slug, which is wasting the effort. Now for a diagram of a magnet that is always active:

( = field pulling the abject in -> direction
o = Magnet
) = field pulling the abject in <- direction
p = slug

p (+1(+2(+3(o)-3)-2)-1)

the numbers above represent the speed of the projectile as it passes the fully active magnet. Eventually the projectile will wind up stuck to the magnet as it will keep cycling back and forth through the system, slowly losing energy each time.

Now for a two stage cycling magnet set:

P (+1(+2(+3(o (+4(+5(+6(o

as each successive magnet catches the speeding projectile, it still exerts the same accelerating force on the already moving slug. This allows for mammoth speeds to be developed from even small guns.

sounds interesting, but not sure how to read this:

p (+1(+2(+3(o)-3)-2)-1)

the numbers represent the speed as the acceleration force of the magnet is factored in.

At point +1, the slug is moving at only a few m/s, at point +2, it has accelerated to twice that. and at point +3 it has accelerated to thrice that.

The numbers merely show how the accelerating effects of the magnet would affect the slug in the event that the magnet were left active.

I am gonna pick this one back up, hopefully ill be able to do up a neat graphic to replace some of those text things.

Title: MAC Gun
Author: ilKhan Ozy
Editor: {Editor's name}

Description: Magnetic Acceleration Cannons (MAC) generally are found on most ships. As these are cheaper and easier to produce than energy weapons, it makes them a favorite of many manufacturers.

MAC guns can be anywhere from single, to 100 stage weapons. Each stage consists of an electromagnet system.An electromagnet system consists of a set of dump capacitors, an electromagnet, and a set of bleed off capacitors. The two sets of capacitors are essential to maintaining the gun in any prolonged use. Initially, the dump capacitors will slowly charge, and when the time comes to fire, the various stages will, in succession, dump on the electricity, rapidly creating a massive magnetic field, and then, just before the projectile passes, they will dump the electricity into the waiting capacitors to be recycled into the next round.

The reason for this cycling of magnets is the tendency for magnets to exert their fields in all directions, meaning, that if the magnets do not power down before the slug passes, they will then begin working to slow the slug, which is wasting the effort. As each successive magnet catches the speeding projectile, it still exerts the same accelerating force on the already moving slug. This allows for mammoth speeds to be developed from even small guns.

MAC guns can be considered the little brother of Railguns.



Cost: variable

Availability: very common


___________

Apparently the site doesn't like .gifs. Click it and watch if you want. It works, I know it does.

So this is similar to the mag trains they have out now? Do the magnets keep the slug centered in the chamber so that there is no friction as it moves down the barrel?


How does the number of stages affect the projectile? And is there a limit (obviously there is) to the number of stages that can be added.

Well, the staging of the weapon is only done to continue acceleration. So, as one magnetic stage imparts an acceleration of 10 m/s, the next will continue that acceleration. Which is what makes the MAC gun so devastating. In one stage, you can accelerate a slug that is 5 inches long, and 1 inch in diameter, to speeds capable of exerting over 3 million newtons of force. From one stage, you produce the impact energy that is roughly 1/50 the energy released by the Hiroshima bomb. Imagine if you have five of these in line, you now have an impact force that is roughly 1/10 the energy released by the Hiroshima bomb.

I think.

That was with each magnet having a charge of 1000 amps, at 2000 turns. I am not sure if that is entirely feasible, but I figure that capacitors can handle loads like that in rapid succession before overheating.

Well, it's basically a linear accelerator, so the length of the platform would limit the length of the weapon.
Also, a point of diminishing returns would be reached at significant fractions of light velocity, which would be another practical limit, though I doubt it would be reached in most applications.
Perhaps if an accelerator was built around the equator of a planet

A weapon like this would be able to fire solid ferromagnetic materials, of course, but could quite easily be coupled to a plasma injector (plasma is magnetic) to fire bolts of incandescent fiery nuclear death

Ahem...

[/MadScientistMode]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1q_rRic ... re=related

Wow....cool video.

Scary, isn't it?
That's a solid slug at 2.5km/s. All the fire is plasma caused by air friction.