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Gatling Generator
Dispose of surplus ammunition while providing electric power to remote areas. | |
There are lots of places in the world where electricity is scarce but guns and ammunition are woefully plentiful. In the true spirit of swords to ploughshares, I offer... the Gatling Generator!
Ammunition is poured into a hopper on top of the device. Any particular generator takes just one caliber.
Most come in 7.62x39mm which is plentiful anywhere there have ever been Soviets, although there is a model specifically for the US urban market that comes in 9mm pistol.
The device appears to be a gatling gun type machine gun, with several barrels arranged in a circle: however there is a key difference. Cartriges drop from the hopper into a chamber that holds the bullet end and the casing simultaneously. When the firing pin is struck the bullet drives a piston instead of shooting out a barrel. Thus, the energy of the gunpowder is translated mostly into mechanical work instead of the kinetic energy of the flying bullet.
Just like a regular gatling gun, the barrels rotate - but the extra energy imparted to the rotation is enough to drive an alternator for electric power! Spent bullets and casings fill removable bins in the bottom, ready for recycling.
A perfect fit for, say, Iraq where the market is flooded with ammunition but the lights are on in the shops only a few hours a day.
Some quick calculations: a 7.62x39mm round fired from an AK-47 has a kinetic energy of about 1500 ft*lb. Assume a firing rate of 10 rounds per second or 600 rpm, giving 1500 * 600 = 900,000 ft*lb/min. Let's say the net efficiency of the device is 50%: then we have 450,000 ft*lb/min or 450000/33000 = 13.6 horsepower = about 10 kW of electrical generation
10 kW is certainly enough to run 2-3 modest shops and homes... provided of course one can find the 36,000 cartriges per hour necessary to run the machine. It might be necessary to charge batteries and run off of them, but of course then there is a 50% penalty for charging and discharging losses.
After a plane crash in the Sahara, one of the survivors says he's an airplane designer and they can make a flyable plane from the wreckage
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059183/
[normzone, Jul 10 2006]
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If the barrels are water cooled you could put the hot water to use as well. They would certainly get hot. |
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However, I think the energy that goes into the making of bullets isn't regained by this device. I say just use the gatling and the bullets to capture an oil producing country. That would be more productive. |
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//just use the gatling and the bullets to capture an oil producing country. That would be more productive//
Pragmatism, we salute you! |
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Certainly, the energy going into the bullets is not regained - not by a very very long shot. The alleged usefulness is that they are available. Every thug in Iraq must have a thousand. |
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So, if every thug in Iraq has a thousand then it would take 36 thugs per hour to run the three shops, or one thug every five minutes per shop. Assuming an average working day of 6 hours (lazy these Iraquis), we would have to enlist some 216 thugs every day or just over a thousand per week. What do you think we must sell in these shops to justify the investment? Guns? |
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On the other hand, if we use larger caliber rounds or, even better, explosives we could improve the economics of this scheme. |
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A [+] vote for an amusing idea that actually could work. |
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What was that movie with Jimmy Stewart and an odd cast stranded in the desert, tryin to start an airplane that had skids, not wheels, by using some kind of shotgun shell igniter? I've only ever seen the end (off to search). |
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"Damn, the neighbor is running their generator again". |
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Ok, now I'm going to have to see the whole movie, it sounds like a bunch of Halfbakers building a plane [link]. |
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[methinksnot] - Yes, it could certainly use artillery shells: I think that device would look more like a reciprocating engine spitting out big brass casings. Very cool - carrying around and delivering the "fuel" might be a problem though. |
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My vision for the Gatling is that they just stop off at the nearest weapons cache, load up a wheelbarrow full of rifle ammunition, and pay a kid a dollar a day to keep dumping cartriges into the hopper. |
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I wonder how much energy can be produced by burning the insurgents themselves... |
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[+] for anything that uses weapons for something other than killing. |
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I could envisage something like a reverse coil gun, that captures the kinetic energy of the bullets as well, and converts it directly into current. |
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9mms in US Urban settings... GHH... Someone must educate these thugs on maximum range of stray bullets and overpenetration. |
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"We don't need gun control, we need bullet control. If every bullet cost $60 there'd be a lot less innocent bystanders" - Chris Rock |
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//If every bullet cost $60 there'd be a lot less innocent bystanders//
There'd be more, shirley.
There'd be less [sic] /dead/ innocent bystanders, hopefully. |
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[coprocephalous] Yes I believe that was the thrust of his argument. However when is there ever an innocent bystander without an "incident" to innocently stand by? |
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There's one over there right now, but no-one noticed. |
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[normzone], the movie is called 'Flight of the Pheonix' (1965, 20th Century Fox). I can't remember what they call it in the movie (somebody's name, presumably the inventor), but those types of devices are generally referred to as percussive starters or percussive ignitions (even though the actual "ignition" comes from magnetos or spark plugs). They use what is the equivalent of a 6-guage shotgun shell with no pellets, only powder. |
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A much more effecient motor for driving a generator could be made to burn just the powder from ammunition. |
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Or how about one that just runs on match-heads? |
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