Chapter 13, Problem 10RQ

The following data were collected during testing of an electromagnetic mass driver. The energy to energize the electromagnets was obtained from a bank of capacitors. The capacitor bank was charged to various voltages, and for each voltage, the exit velocity of the projectile was measured when the mass driver was activated.

1. a. Show the resulting data and trending, with equation and R² value, on the appropriate graph type (xy scatter, or log–log) to make the data appear linear.
2. b. What would the velocity be if the capacitors were charged to 1000 volts?
3. c. What voltage would be necessary to accelerate the projectile to 1000 meters per second?
4. d. Assume that the total capacitance is 5 farads. If the capacitors are initially charged 10,000 volts and are discharged to 2000 volts during the launch of a projectile, what is the mass of the projectile if the overall conversion of energy stored in the capacitors to kinetic energy in the projectile has an efficiency of 0.2? Recall that the energy stored in a capacitor is given by E = 0.5 CV² where C is capacitance in farads and V is voltage in volts.