A ram accelerator is a device for accelerating projectiles to extremely high speeds using jet-engine-like propulsion cycles based on ramjet and/or scramjet combustion processes. It is thought to be possible to achieve non-rocket spacelaunch with this technology.
They consist of a long tube (barrel) filled with a mixture of combustible gases with a frangible diaphragm at either end to contain the gases. The projectile, which is shaped like a ramjet core, is fired by another means (e.g., a light gas gun) supersonically through the first diaphragm into the tube. It then burns the gases as fuel, accelerating down the tube under jet propulsion. Other physics come into play at higher velocities.
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Famous quotes containing the word ram:
“At one time or another, almost every politician needs an honest man so badly that, like a ravenous wolf, he breaks into a sheep-fold: not to devour the ram he has stolen, however, but rather to conceal himself behind its wooly back.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)