Steam Powered Flying Vehicle?

Faraday discovered and published the basic aspects of magnetic induction in the third decade of the 1800s. The rail gun description provided by Light in a very recent post is entirely accurate, causing me to ask why you ask "how do I do this tech?"?

Your major technological hurdles, in the 1830s, would be the creation and control of prodigeous amounts of electric current. A rail gun that would put a Volkswagen into orbit would demand an awful lot of power.

When we look at a satelite launch and marvel at the enourmous amount of energy the solid fuel boosters and the liquid hydrogen/oxygen rocket motors emit, we must remember that it does not matter if the mechanism is steam, chemical energy, electric rails, compressed air, etc., that same amount of energy is required to put something into orbit.

 

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Oh. When I ask " how do I do this with the tech I'm working with", what I'm wondering is "What kind of device would allow me to produce that much magnetic force? What would it look like? How big would it be? and How would I build it with 1800's technology?"

I'm not too familiar with 1800's understanding of magnetics or with the idea of how much electricity or what size or type of magnets I'd need for this thing.

 

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Any electric current is inducing a magnetic field. In Light's description, the current in each rail is inducing a magnetic field. An electrical conductor laying across the rails is carrying current from one rail to the other. Therefore there is a magnetic field associated with the crosswise conductor. The crosswise conductor's magnetic field will react with the rails' magnetic field to provide motion in the crosswise conductor. The direction of the motion will depend on the direction of the current. No real problem.

Remember that to put something into orbit with electricity, the same spectacular amount of energy is needed as in a chemical rocket launch.

 

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Ok. I think I can visualize this now. My only problem would be materials needed for this and an actual size for the machine. So, according to what I read, one shot would likely incinerate some parts of the gun. Ok.

 

i beleive the magnetic rail would have to operate on the rotating feild theory of electric motors
the lenght of the rails would be divided up into pole faces
where each pole face is energized at the right time to provide a forward momentum

 

Know any place where they say how big the 90 mm bore, 9 MJ kinetic energy gun DARPA rail gun was and how fast it launched projectiles?

 

Military rail guns are designed to be good for one use. That is, one use destroys them. The rails are vaporized. The extremely high current instantly creates so much resistive heating that a small fraction of a second leaves nothing but hot metal vapor behind.

In a multiple use orbital device the current would have to be controlled much differently. The rails would have to be low resistance conductors, such as gold or maybe copper, and very large in cross section, as would need be the conductor portion of the projectile. In electromagnets, the strength of the field is determined by a very simple formula, Amps x turns. Turns refers to the number of windings around a core: for a rail the turns term is meaningless. The only important variable is simply the amps of current, and, unfortunately resistance varies as the square of amps. So, the rails and other conductors must be very large to avoid too much resistance heating.

Also, the power lines and the generator need to be adequate for such power.

 

Light's description is workable: two parallel rails and one or more crosswise conductors is all that is needed. No timing of currents or any kind of complication is needed. Set the projectile on the tracks, turn on the simple Direct Current power source and kiss ypur projectile goodbye.

 

Military railguns are powered by large Faraday generators in a drum configuration. Faraday generators have substantial back torque indiginous to their power generation ability. In operation, the generator is spun up to its desired RPM and then is permitted to execute its back torque and self-brake. During the very short time of self-braking it is producing a huge amount of current to power the railgun.

Faraday motors and generators are essentially the simplest of devices, as are inductive rails, and it would take little poetic license to envision relatively powerful devices being in use two centuries ago, more or less.

 

kibbles
here is a site where you can obtain a model
http://amazing1.com/electric-guns.htm

 

RAIL GUNS.. suck... what you want is a non-dispersive electrical beam weapon...
basically a 100 million volt arc welder.. that can weld at distances of 250 miles on the surface or to great distances into space....

-MT

 

Uh... yahhh :bugeye:

 

Thanks

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Thank you, Cangas, for providing him with more in-depth information. At that particular moment I was rushed for time and only had enough to give a brief overview.

And it's good that you also pointed out that the energy requirements are exactly the same to achieve orbit regardless of the launch method. A kilo of mass is still a kilo no matter how one tries to throw it.

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Mosheh Thezion,

Can you have an electric arc in a vacuum? I thought that you could not.

 

-MT:

The thread starter is wanting to get into orbit, not weld a satelite from a ground base.

Re: the question about electric arc in a vacuum: the ball is in -MT's court.

 

YES YOU CAN...

and in space it would simply become a pion particle beam.

not to mention. any ions from the atmosphere, which may pick up some motion....

-MT

 

Thanks for all the help.

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I'd like to tell you guys that I'll send you copies of the novel when I'm done but I'm not exactly the best writer in the world and it might never get done (just like my 2 previous attempts), but many thanks for all the input anyway. I hope you don't mind.

I'll tell you when something comes of it. (crossing fingers)
I'm really a much better artist than writer though.

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Actually, a steam-powered airplane was built and flown in 1933 by Bill Besler, just to prove it could be done.

I don't know the details. I would guess the flying time was quite short.

Anyway, in the era of steam, lighter-than-air craft would be more appropriate. I see no reason you couldn't have a steam-powered airship (Zeppelin). If you want to see a slightly more "hi-tech" steam-era approach for aircraft (and spacecraft!), look at the "Space: 1889" game rules.

 

An electric arc is a beam of electons, not pions. The medium, or lack of, through which they travel, does not change that.