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Post by michalo on May 6, 2017 12:35:25 GMT
If two coils are applying the same force over the same time, the one that applies force to a faster moving projectile will do more work and be more efficient. And when you add coils in game, this is exactly what you observe: The second coil obviously do more work, because the area under its acceleration as function of distance plot is larger, which means higher efficiency: Blue area represents work of the coil (obviously divided by mass). Now the question is: Why whole design becomes less efficient (and sometimes SLOWER) when you add a second stage? Second stage is more efficient than first, and it shouldn't affect its performance, so why overall efficiency is not increasing? Moreover, the peak acceleration decreases (by a factor of two for 1-staged coilguns) when you add more stages (which is probably the reason for the efficiency loss).
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Post by goduranus on May 6, 2017 13:03:17 GMT
Interesting, would adding more stages affect first stage acceleration in the real world?
However, the additional stage may not be more efficient than the first stage, since even though the projectile is faster through the additional stages, it also spends less time in those. If the force is consistent, then the amount of work done per stage should be consistent.
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Post by michalo on May 6, 2017 13:43:00 GMT
Other stages could probably steal some magnetic flux from the current firing stage, even creating magnetic field in opposite direction, althought they probably are not closed cicrcuits when current stage fires, so inducing current inside of them shouldn't be possible. Also, if this was the case, the effect would be different for different materials,stage lenghts, while it is the same.
I also observed something interesting: ingame peak acceleration is almost exactly inversely proportional to stage count. In case of problems with magnetic circuit, the behaviour would be surely much more complex and dependent on many parameters.
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Post by vegemeister on May 7, 2017 10:35:40 GMT
Is that a capacitor coilgun or a line-powered one? Looks like a capacitor one to me.
See how the acceleration has two sharp peaks separated by a wide space? That's because the capacitor is completely discharging before the projectile reaches the center of the coil. I haven't played with the new patch, but at least in the old version, it seems like inductance may not have been taken into account, only resistance.
The force a coil carrying constant current (this seems to be what the line-powered case models, I think) exerts on a core (projectile) depends on how far into the coil it is. If the the core is far outside the coil, there is very little force. If the core is in the center, there is zero force.
In order to efficiently transfer energy from the capacitor to the projectile, you want the pulse of current in the coil to roughly match the time it takes for the projectile to move from halfway into the coil to the center. This is done by matching the capacitor voltage to the coil impedance. (Based on your graph, I would suggest reducing the capacitor dielectric thickness, or, if you can't reduce it any further, adding turns and layers to the coil and reducing wire diameter.)
But there's a problem. Every stage, capacitor and coil, is identical. However, as the projectile moves down the barrel, it speeds up. So really you would want later stages to use greater capacitor voltage than earlier stages. If you tune impedance match for the first stage, in later stages the projectile whizzes by before the current has built up in the coil. If you tune the match for the later stages, in the first stage the current dies away before the projectile gets far enough into the coil to experience significant force.
I think this is why capacitor coilguns suck, and have abysmal efficiency past 1-3 stages. But maybe someone has managed to make a good one since I last visited the forum?
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Post by zorbeltuss on May 7, 2017 11:24:06 GMT
You are correct in that they do not work in the manner that would be scientifically accurate, but efficiency is not a function of distance, it is a function of time, if the projectile gains the most velocity in the first stage then the second stage while having a larger distance to work on will have less time and since it shows Gs which are ~9.8m/s^2 the shorter time will result in less m/s.
Also open circuits do conduct power, often not much, but enough to create havoc, this is especially relevant in the vicinity of nearby fluctuating magnetic fields, but I don't think the game models that (or if it does it does it in a simplified manner since the finite element method solutions for these kind of problems would probably not be leaving much room for computations of the actual game).
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Post by michalo on May 7, 2017 11:39:30 GMT
You are correct in that they do not work in the manner that would be scientifically accurate, but efficiency is not a function of distance, it is a function of time, if the projectile gains the most velocity in the first stage then the second stage while having a larger distance to work on will have less time and since it shows Gs which are ~9.8m/s^2 the shorter time will result in less m/s. Also open circuits do conduct power, often not much, but enough to create havoc, this is especially relevant in the vicinity of nearby fluctuating magnetic fields, but I don't think the game models that (or if it does it does it in a simplified manner since the finite element method solutions for these kind of problems would probably not be leaving much room for computations of the actual game). Nope, work = force*distance, and E k = mv^2/2. It is true that the projectile will accelerate by not higher dV in the second stage than the in the first, but when speed is doubled, kinetic energy is quadrupled, so if the first stage accelerated projectile to 10 m/s, and second one accelerated it further to 20m/s, the second one is three times as efficient as the first one, because projectile has four times as much kinetic energy as passing through first stage, so second stage added 3 times as much energy as first stage. As you can see, even if projectile accelerated less in the second second stage, it does not means that the second stage is less efficient.
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Post by michalo on May 7, 2017 11:51:01 GMT
Is that a capacitor coilgun or a line-powered one? Looks like a capacitor one to me. [...] Yes, it is a capacitor one, and it is obviously not tuned correctly, but in this case it does not matter at all. I use it for demonstration purpose, not as a practical weapon. The only important fact is that second stage is more efficient than first, and the game still says that this coilgun is more efficient when you remove it.
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Post by zorbeltuss on May 7, 2017 12:27:16 GMT
Acceleration is a function of time, force is a function of acceleration, work which is a function of force is then a function of acceleration and thereby time.
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Post by michalo on May 7, 2017 14:20:52 GMT
Acceleration can be function of anything, because acceleration is a vector representing how velocity changes over time, but it does not need to be dependent on any of those. There is no reason why acceleration shouldn't be function of result of dice roll done by captain of the ship, or function of total elephants count. But in this case we have a PLOT representing how acceleration changes over distance. This means that there is function, which for every distance belonging to a (0, barrel length) returns some acceleration, so acceleration is in fact a function of distance (I do not say that it is not function of anything else). Given that there is that function, and knowing that projectile moved in a single direction, we can now calculate work as W = integral(acceleration(distance) deltadistance) * mass, which is the blue area under the plot multiplied by mass of the projectile.
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Post by Pttg on May 7, 2017 22:50:12 GMT
Is that a capacitor coilgun or a line-powered one? Looks like a capacitor one to me. See how the acceleration has two sharp peaks separated by a wide space? That's because the capacitor is completely discharging before the projectile reaches the center of the coil. I haven't played with the new patch, but at least in the old version, it seems like inductance may not have been taken into account, only resistance. The force a coil carrying constant current (this seems to be what the line-powered case models, I think) exerts on a core (projectile) depends on how far into the coil it is. If the the core is far outside the coil, there is very little force. If the core is in the center, there is zero force. In order to efficiently transfer energy from the capacitor to the projectile, you want the pulse of current in the coil to roughly match the time it takes for the projectile to move from halfway into the coil to the center. This is done by matching the capacitor voltage to the coil impedance. (Based on your graph, I would suggest reducing the capacitor dielectric thickness, or, if you can't reduce it any further, adding turns and layers to the coil and reducing wire diameter.) But there's a problem. Every stage, capacitor and coil, is identical. However, as the projectile moves down the barrel, it speeds up. So really you would want later stages to use greater capacitor voltage than earlier stages. If you tune impedance match for the first stage, in later stages the projectile whizzes by before the current has built up in the coil. If you tune the match for the later stages, in the first stage the current dies away before the projectile gets far enough into the coil to experience significant force. I think this is why capacitor coilguns suck, and have abysmal efficiency past 1-3 stages. But maybe someone has managed to make a good one since I last visited the forum? I totally agree, but I also really, really don't want to fine-tune 200 stages to get the most out of my coilguns. Would it be practical to have that portion of the design automated?
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Post by omnipotentvoid on May 8, 2017 8:59:45 GMT
First of all: the science! Work is defined as a function of distance. Distance itself can be expressed as a function of velocity or acceleration. The importance of this nuance is that work is always done over distance. If you characterize the distance traveled as a function of time, the start and end points of your integral themselves become functions of time. As for efficiency, if a second stage that is identical to the first is used to further accelerate the projectile, it will be less efficient, because the projectile enters with a higher velocity, and thus has less effective distance (compared to starting from a standstill) to accelerate. However this can be counteracted by spacing the coils or modulating pulse length. It is important to realize that the work put into the projectile by multiple identical stages is always the same. Changing pulse length or spacing coils means adding more work to the projectile, as was pointed out already!
Second: implementation in CoaDE. The way that capacitors are implemented currently, especially for coil guns with multiple stages, is messed up. This is easily demonstrated by makin capacitor coilguns with >100% efficiency. Multiple stage coilguns are broken because the force applied is inversely proportional to the number of stages. Personally, I think this was done, because stage efficiency is additive, at least (possibly multiplicative), as far as the work applied is concerned. Efficiency of multi stage coilguns with >100% per stage efficiency would thus quickly escalate. Another possibility is that the stored energy isn't equally distributed across the stages. It looks like it is, but taking into account acceleration in capacitor railguns, it's obvious the game makes some weird assumptions as far as power input is concerned. Regardless, what is physically realistic isn't really relevant here, because the efficiency or efficiency loss in this case has more to do with the formulae the game uses, rather than what physics dictates should happen. With out access to these formulas, finding the efficiency sink in multi stage coilguns is more down to luck than judgment.
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Post by michalo on May 8, 2017 10:34:00 GMT
First of all: the science! Work is defined as a function of distance. Distance itself can be expressed as a function of velocity or acceleration. The importance of this nuance is that work is always done over distance. If you characterize the distance traveled as a function of time, the start and end points of your integral themselves become functions of time. As for efficiency, if a second stage that is identical to the first is used to further accelerate the projectile, it will be less efficient, because the projectile enters with a higher velocity, and thus has less effective distance (compared to starting from a standstill) to accelerate. However this can be counteracted by spacing the coils or modulating pulse length. It is important to realize that the work put into the projectile by multiple identical stages is always the same. Changing pulse length or spacing coils means adding more work to the projectile, as was pointed out already! Second: implementation in CoaDE. The way that capacitors are implemented currently, especially for coil guns with multiple stages, is messed up. This is easily demonstrated by makin capacitor coilguns with >100% efficiency. Multiple stage coilguns are broken because the force applied is inversely proportional to the number of stages. Personally, I think this was done, because stage efficiency is additive, at least (possibly multiplicative), as far as the work applied is concerned. Efficiency of multi stage coilguns with >100% per stage efficiency would thus quickly escalate. Another possibility is that the stored energy isn't equally distributed across the stages. It looks like it is, but taking into account acceleration in capacitor railguns, it's obvious the game makes some weird assumptions as far as power input is concerned. Regardless, what is physically realistic isn't really relevant here, because the efficiency or efficiency loss in this case has more to do with the formulae the game uses, rather than what physics dictates should happen. With out access to these formulas, finding the efficiency sink in multi stage coilguns is more down to luck than judgment. In this case, both acceleration (so also force) and distance are given, so I can directly calculate work via my integral, which is equivalent to painting the area under the plot with blue color. If I have made an error here, please correct me. Also, in my simple example, both capacitors discharge completely before the projectile passes the center of the coil, so second stage perform work in the same time as first stage, but over longer distance, thus being more efficient. If each stage is identical and considered separately, total efficiency is the average of each stage efficiencies. Is my reasoning correct? I agree that game does not allow to correctly use the benefit from multiple stages, but it is not the point. I am trying to show that game is openly violating physics without reason in a manner that reduces quality of simulation. To present final evidence, I post my coilgun design. Add and remove stages and see that the velocity DECREASES when you ADD second stage.
CoilgunModule 200 kW 8mm Internal Capacitor Coilgun
UsesCustomName false
PowerConsumption_W 2e+005
Capacitor
DielectricComposition Hafnia
Dimensions_m 0.015 0.0052
Separation_m 4e-007
Coil
Composition Beryllium Copper
WireRadius_m 0.0011
NumberOfTurns 5
NumberOfLayers 3
NumberOfStages 1
BarrelArmor
Composition Boron
Thickness_m 0.005
Armature
Composition Ferritic Stainless Steel
BoreRadius_m 0.004
Mass_kg 0.004
Tracer Copper
Payload null
Loader
PowerConsumption_W 100
ExternalMount false
InternalMount true
AttachedAmmoBay
Capacity 50
Stacks 1
TargetsShips true
TargetsShots true
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Post by omnipotentvoid on May 8, 2017 10:58:35 GMT
You calculations aren't wrong. Because both capacitors discharge completely, both stages input the same work, and thus should be equally energy efficient.
As for the game violating physics. This is completely necessary. To properly calculate the exit velocity of a coil or railgun you would need to run a fluid dynamic simulation of charge flow under maxwells equations. This takes days on computers set up to do so and would probably take days on desktops. Thus simplified equations are used. These create artifacts, such as singularities (aka points of infinite parameter compression). There is obviously such an artifact in multi stage coilguns. That the force decreases with the number of stages is either a result of or a way to counteract this artifact.
Edit: as an example: if stage efficiency is multiplicative, and stage efficiency is 130% (which I have achieved) then 2 stages are 169% efficient, 3 stages are 220% efficient and so on. At 100 stages this results in an efficiency of 2.48*10^13%. This is far more detrimental to the simulation than multi stage coilguns being ineffective.
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Post by michalo on May 8, 2017 11:59:20 GMT
IF stage efficiency was multiplicative, this would be a tragedy, but, fortunately, it is not , and it cannot be as far as I am concerned. This is because: If we have 2 stages, both using capacitors storing E electrical energy each, and having efficiencies n1,n2, the total efficiency of coilgun is n total = E kinetic / 2*E electrical = (E electrical * n1 + E electrical * n2)/2*E electrical = (n1 + n2)/2. So the total efficiency is arithmetic average of stage efficiencies. But I see your point, as coilguns tend to be more efficient when adding more stages, it can still be quite problematic.
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Post by omnipotentvoid on May 8, 2017 15:02:14 GMT
IF stage efficiency was multiplicative, this would be a tragedy, but, fortunately, it is not , and it cannot be as far as I am concerned. This is because: If we have 2 stages, both using capacitors storing E electrical energy each, and having efficiencies n1,n2, the total efficiency of coilgun is n total = E kinetic / 2*E electrical = (E electrical * n1 + E electrical * n2)/2*E electrical = (n1 + n2)/2. So the total efficiency is arithmetic average of stage efficiencies. But I see your point, as coilguns tend to be more efficient when adding more stages, it can still be quite problematic. The multiplicative case is a worst case scenario. And you are of course correct, realistically speaking the coil efficiency is the average efficiency. However, I have to point out (again) that the game uses simplified calculation to determine force/acceleration/etc. It is very possible that the game uses calculations of force dependant on starting velocity, which would result in the stage efficiency of the second stage being dependant on the efficiency of the first stage. Something like this must obviously be the case, as efficiency for multiple stages drops extremely quickly. Until qswitched tells us how things are calculated, we can only guess what's happening. Until then multi staged coil guns are useless. I suggest you have some fun with >100% efficient coilguns instead, they are highly amusing in large numbers.
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