Here's what it looks like when it's got juice applied.
Posted on 06/07/2005 9:01:14 AM PDT by nuke rocketeer
Scientists at the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico have accelerated a small plate from zero to 76,000 mph in less than a second. The speed of the thrust was a new record for Sandia’s “Z Machine” – not only the fastest gun in the West, but in the world, too.
The Z Machine is now able to propel small plates at 34 kilometers a second, faster than the 30 kilometers per second that Earth travels through space in its orbit about the Sun. That’s 50 times faster than a rifle bullet, and three times the velocity needed to escape Earth’s gravitational field.
The ultra-tiny aluminum plates, just 850 microns thick, are accelerated at 10-to-the-10th Gs (force of Earth’s gravity). Doing so without vaporizing the plates lies in the finer control now achievable of the magnetic field pulse that drives the flight.
Z’s hurled plates strike a target after traveling only five millimeters. The impact generates a shock wave -- in some cases, reaching 15 million times atmospheric pressure -- that passes through the target material. The waves are so powerful that they turn solids into liquids, liquids into gases, and gases into plasmas in the same way that heat melts ice to water or boils water into steam.
One purpose of these very rapid flights is to help understand the extreme conditions found within the interiors of giant planets in our solar system. By creating states of matter extremely difficult to achieve on Earth, the flyer plates provide hard data to astrophysicists speculating on the structure and even the formation of planets like Jupiter and Saturn.
Didier Saumon, an astrophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, noted that the internal structures of Jupiter and Saturn are composed mostly of hydrogen. So knowing its equation of state -- how hydrogen and its isotopes behave at pressures from one to 50 million atmospheres -- is highly relevant to how scientists infer the interior properties of these planets.
An upgrade of the Z Machine is planned for next year and is expected to achieve higher plate velocities.
I think the original purpose of the Z machine was to explore possibilities for nuclear fusion. That's what the guide said when we saw the facilities during a tour of the Sandia Labs when I interviewed there for a job.
Can you attach it to a tracked chassis?
Can you try?
Not likely, it was the size of a building. You could probably fit it on that tracked monster that the Saturn V rockets were moved around on.
It's an advertisement for the Z machine rather than planetary science as the funding cycle comes around to the feed-me point again.
You are right. The Z machine has been one of the great hopes for nuclear fusion.
I'll take the JTOW off my 73 Buick and replace it with a Z-gun.....
If it falls into the wrong hands, however, it could cause damage to the southwest landscape...
From the size of it I doubt it is yet to achieve usefulness as a weapon.
sounds like a nifty device to lift payloads into orbit, a larger model of course.
In any case, I would like to get one for myself.
"Scientists at the Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico have accelerated a small plate from zero to 76,000 mph in less than a second. The speed of the thrust was a new record for Sandia’s “Z Machine” – not only the fastest gun in the West, but in the world, too."
Let's see what it does with a potato.
Phasers on stun...
It must consume huge amounts of power.
Was ACME the prime contractor?
Defense contracting giant Acme Dynamics, Inc. [NYSE - ACDY], formerly Acme Corporation, is reportedly backing the research.
"We see the Z-machine technology as very promising," said Acme spokesman Melvin Blank. "It's certainly a step up from the giant rubber bands that we had been working with."
Stock of Acme spinoff Roll-O-Jet, maker of rocket-powered roller skates for NASA, was up three and two-tenths on the news.
Great minds. Yeah, that's it.
An understatment similar to claims that Rubik's Cube have "more than 3 million combinations."
If the acceleration is constant, the average velocity is half the total velocity, or 17 km/s. At that speed, it would take about 290 nS to go 5 mm - a bit under a third of a millionth of a second.
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