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Senior Member
Registered: 07-20-07
Posts: 2404
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Did Archimedes create a "Super Gun" powered only by steam?? Watch a really great build!
Talk About It Here!
MythMod
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Junior Member
Registered: 05-07-08
Posts: 1
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Jamie and Adam, I would love to see the Archimedes Steam Cannon work. There are a few flaws with you cannon. You had enough heat and steam. But you need to look at the original design better. Your missing something.
You see it? I caught it right away. In the front of the cannon look at what looks like handles or decoration. They are not. They are a function that is needed for it to work. What you need is (2) boards, like a 2 x 4 one with a partial cut thru it. Why? read further. and The second board of wood to go down the length of the barrel to lock the projectile in. With that you will get the pressure build up you need. And with the cross board (the 1st 2x4 with the cut). When pressure reaches its max. the projectile launches out. Pushing the board in the barrel out. BREAKING the locking in board.
Now it will work . BTW it will have 2 projectiles the ball and the board.
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Junior Member
Registered: 05-07-08
Posts: 1
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I suggest researching boiler explosions. Same concept. Boiler explosions happen with simple equipment. The dry boiler gets red hot, some goof tries to cool it down by adding water, and the boiler blows the building apart. I suggest a bigger resevoir for the ball to be added. Much hotter temperatures would also be required.
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Junior Member
Registered: 05-07-08
Posts: 1
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in my opinion ther was several things wrong with your steam cannon, 1)the heat sink ability of your copper thickness is too little(thicker or thick cast iron)2) steam builds too slowly thus no explosion3)try greasing the barrel to ensure a tight fit and seal.4) try heating the water and the empty tank thus the water will flash and not cool so fast(more dangerous)
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Junior Member
Registered: 05-07-08
Posts: 1
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the butterfly valve cannon had the potential to shoot the cannon ball approx 3 mi @ 189 psi. that it is awsome
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Junior Member
Registered: 05-07-08
Posts: 2
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Your problem is your boiler design. There are two types of boilers, water tube and fire tube. Fire tube would provide the heat transfer you need to build pressure much faster. Basically you need several tubes running vertically from top to bottom of you tank. This would allow heat to travel through the tubes increasing the transfer rate, and preventing the majority of the heat escaping around the outside of the steam vessel.
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Junior Member
Registered: 05-08-08
Posts: 1
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Jamie and Adam, You should take a trip and visit an aircraft carrier. To launch and aircraft steam is released from a big tank of water, the accumulator, via a large valve, the launch valve. That steam acts on a piston which is attached to the nose gear of the aircraft. The wiki link also provides a little history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_catapult |
Junior Member
Registered: 05-08-08
Posts: 1
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ok i cant find out how to submit a myth but i had a airsoft gun that was electric and we took a guess that the nickel metal hydrate battery started the fire because the supercharger over charged it and i blew up. the fire happen march 16th 2008 and it burned out my room and my bathroom and melted everything in my brothers room and turned the rest of the house black. so if u can reply to this and it would be great if you could test it
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Member
Registered: 01-09-08
Posts: 14
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quote: Originally posted by sparks134a:
Jamie and Adam, I would love to see the Archimedes Steam Cannon work. There are a few flaws with you cannon. You had enough heat and steam. But you need to look at the original design better. Your missing something.
You see it? I caught it right away. In the front of the cannon look at what looks like handles or decoration. They are not. They are a function that is needed for it to work. What you need is (2) boards, like a 2 x 4 one with a partial cut thru it. Why? read further. and The second board of wood to go down the length of the barrel to lock the projectile in. With that you will get the pressure build up you need. And with the cross board (the 1st 2x4 with the cut). When pressure reaches its max. the projectile launches out. Pushing the board in the barrel out. BREAKING the locking in board.
Now it will work . BTW it will have 2 projectiles the ball and the board.
Really? This is possibly the strongest arguement, and at the same time, so rediculous that I can't begin to stop my brain from reeling. Wood.....to the bottom of cannon.....really? Really? Let's start with what happens to wood when you steam it. Namely swelling and weakening. Wood is not going to hold in ANY kind of steam pressure outside of a steam bath. One, two, even three pieces. So if metal can hardly stand the max pressure, how can you expect some widdled wood to be up to the task? No doubt machinery to make it fit the way it would be needed did not exist, and the time to do it by hand would require WAY more time that it would be worth to make it effective. There's no doubt with today's technology, as they've already proven, you could do such a thing. But that technology did not exist back then. |
Junior Member
Registered: 05-08-08
Posts: 1
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Dude, I just saw the steam cannon episode. It would have worked if you have used wading
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Junior Member
Registered: 05-08-08
Posts: 1
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I think that, to make the cannon work, y'all should think about how a polish cannon works. This is 5 or 6 cans taped together, all but one have the top and bottom cut off, the bottom one is left intact with a small hole punched in the bottom.(beer or soda cans)
You squirt lighter fluid into the hole, shake vigorously, insert tennis ball in other end and apply flame to hole.
Tennis ball shoots about 40-50ft. (dont use on dry grass!!!)
If the steam is witheld with a plug in the arch. cannon with a plug that will blow through a hole or tube that leads to ammo chamber after attaining enough pressure, it should eject the ammo more effectively.
Have a few quick drawings, but no autocad.
IE: the principle behind the polish cannon is directing the output of the pressure through an aperature smaller than the generating vessel.
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Junior Member
Registered: 05-08-08
Posts: 2
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I think the cannon was sound but the large version of the Archmedes cannon like the small needed more surface area inside to heat the water somthing simple like stones inside the tube to collect heat and add surface area to explode the water would have greatly changed the outcome.. have you ever dumped water on a super heated stone.. boom
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Junior Member
Registered: 05-08-08
Posts: 2
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its cause the stone is porous dump water on super heated steel and it balls up no boom
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Junior Member
Registered: 05-08-08
Posts: 1
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quote: Originally posted by mythmod:
Did Archimedes create a "Super Gun" powered only by steam?? Watch a really great build!
Talk About It Here!
MythMod
The problem with the cannon version shown is that cold or even hot water dropped on any hot (212 degrees or more)surface will form a steam shield between the water and heat source. You need to create a steam flash. How? Make a high temp/pressure resistant container, insert a few bars of rebar for a thermal 'battery', fill with water, attach this to a globe quick acting valve and on the other side of this your barrel. Close the valve, heat the container to ~450 degrees, slam the valve open. When the pressure in the container drops all the heat energy is transferred to the compressed water flashing it into steam. BOOM!!!! Bye-bye projectile. |
Member
Registered: 05-06-08
Posts: 20
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I think Adam and Jamie should do an episode about speed raser should in't they
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Junior Member
Registered: 05-08-08
Posts: 1
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The only cannon to have obviously used wading was the last and it worked. If you did not use wading in the earlier models that would have been a failure point.
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Senior Member
Registered: 11-28-07
Posts: 623
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At the end of the episode, where Jamie picked up the cannon ball out in the field, it appeared to have been sitting in a round depression in the ground. It looked like someone had just dropped it there from a height of a few feet, rather than rolling up to that point and stopping.
So, was that really how far the cannon fired it or was it a dramatic re-enactment just for the cameras?
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Senior Member
Registered: 02-18-07
Posts: 1853
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After landing on the planet Mars, the rover 'Opportunity' found itself in a circular depression. I think we all know it did not make that depression, but rather just rolled into the it.
I suspect that is the case here too. The cannon ball rolled into a local depression and did not have enough inertia left to roll back out.
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Senior Member
Registered: 11-28-07
Posts: 623
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quote: Originally posted by watcher56:
After landing on the planet Mars, the rover 'Opportunity' found itself in a circular depression. I think we all know it did not make that depression, but rather just rolled into the it.
I suspect that is the case here too. The cannon ball rolled into a local depression and did not have enough inertia left to roll back out.
The depression was the exact size and shape as the cannon ball, like what you would get if you dropped a heavy ball into soft ground. I didn't see any other similar dents near by. |
Senior Member
Registered: 02-18-07
Posts: 1853
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Can't say I noticed it during the episode. Could it be that the ball just sunk in to the soft soil while it sat there? It was rather heavy....
I can't imagine the ball coming to a dead stop in the exact place it landed.
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