light-gas gun

A light-gas gun works on the same principle as a spring piston airgun.

But light-gas guns are far more complex than powder-burning guns.

The cannon often used for such experiments (and for testing tank armor) is called a two-stage, light-gas gun.

The light-gas gun is an apparatus for physics experiments, a highly specialized gun designed to generate very high velocities.

One particular light-gas gun used by NASA uses a modified 40 mm cannon for power.

Using Compressed Hydrogen The future light-gas gun for launching space payloads, Livermore engineers say, probably will dispense with a pump tube.

Arnold Air Force Base's Range-G is "largest routinely operated two-stage, light-gas gun system in the United States".

One addition that a light-gas gun adds to the airgun is a rupture disk, which is a carefully calibrated disk (usually metal) designed to act as a valve.

The resulting combination of electrical heating and piston compression provide higher pressures and temperatures, resulting in more power and a higher potential speed than a standard light-gas gun.

The limiting factor on the speed of an airgun, firearm, or light-gas gun is the speed of sound in the working fluid-the air, burning gunpowder, or a light gas.

Light-gas guns differ from conventional guns in an important way: they use hydrogen or helium as the propellant gas, rather than the mixture of relatively heavy gases produced by burning gunpowder.

Sharp is a two-stage light-gas gun of a type used by laboratories for the last two decades to simulate the impact of meteorites and the physical conditions deep inside giant planets like Jupiter.

The hybrid electrothermal light-gas gun works on similar principles of the standard light-gas gun, but adds an electric arc to heat the light gas to a higher temperature and pressure than the piston alone.

In a light-gas gun, the piston is powered by a chemical reaction (usually gunpowder), and the working fluid is a lighter gas, such as helium or hydrogen (though helium is much safer to work with, hydrogen offers the best performance [as explained below], and causes less launch-tube erosion).