The Gauss Rifle and Magnetic Energy

James A. Rabchuk

Citation: The Physics Teacher 41, 158 (2003); doi: 10.1119/1.1557504

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.1557504
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 The Gauss Rifle and
Magnetic Energy
James A. Rabchuk, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL

W
ith the advent of cheap and easy-to- magnets of this dimension are all of similar quality.
come-by NdFeB magnets, it has become The strength of the magnetization in the material per
possible to design a number of simple unit volume is usually given as the energy product in
but effective demonstrations of magnetic force. One units of MGOe (read mega gauss-oersteds). A typical
such demonstration, dubbed the “gauss rifle,” is a type NdFeB magnet available online has an energy product
of linear magnetic accelerator. It is relatively easy to of about 35 MGOe. This is useful to know when try-
assemble and involves a rapid and dramatic increase in ing to simulate the demonstration using finite ele-
kinetic energy of the steel ball bearings used in the ment analysis. Similarly, the steel bearings are usually
demonstration. This makes the demonstration a good made of a low-carbon steel, such as 1020 steel (con-
attention getter, setting the stage for a discussion of a taining 0.20% carbon by weight), which has a known,
number of physics topics, including conservation of nonlinear magnetic permeability.
energy, magnetic energy, and magnetic force. It also The magnets should be placed squarely over the
has the potential for becoming a laboratory experi- center of the ruler, with their north pole faces all
ment since the materials are relatively cheap, there is pointing in the same direction, lying at the 2.5-, 5.0-,
some challenge in the arrangement of the magnets, 7.5-, and 10-in marks, respectively, which leaves ap-
and the performance of the accelerator can be charac- proximately 2.0 in between magnets and between
terized by measuring the initial and final velocities of each end magnet and the end of the ruler. A magnetic
the bearings. Finally, by using freely available finite compass or other pole detector is necessary to identify
element magnetics software, it is even possible to the pole faces on the square magnets. To secure each
make predictions of the final velocity for different magnet to the ruler in a relatively permanent fashion,
configurations of the magnets. electrical tape can be wrapped around the magnet and
ruler at least two times. Once the magnets have been
Apparatus secured, the tape needs to be trimmed off of the faces
The gauss rifle is best constructed using a wooden of the magnet so that the bearings can freely come in-
ruler with a slot down the center, four 12-mm square to contact with the poles.
gold-plated NdFeB magnets, plenty of cellophane (or Once the magnets are secured in place, eight of the
electrical) tape, and nine 0.795-cm radius nickel-coat- steel bearings are placed two by two, touching the
ed steel ball bearings. It is best to buy a ruler with ei- north pole faces of each of the four magnets. Failure
ther no metal strip or with a brass one to avoid prob- to secure the magnets tightly before beginning this
lems with placing the magnets on the ruler. Plastic phase is guaranteed to produce a tangled mess of mag-
rulers are also possible, although if cellophane tape is net chips, bearings, and crumpled tape. The ninth
used, the tape sticks better to the wood. The NdFeB bearing is the incoming projectile, which is released

158 DOI: 10.1119/1.1557504 THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 41, March 2003

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 Fig. 1. Gauss rifle, with PASCO photo-
gates for measuring the incoming and
outgoing bearing velocities.

Kinetic Energy vs Initial Velocity

0.250

0.245

0.240

Kinetic energy (J)

0.235

0.230

0.225

0.220

0.215

0.210

0.205

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6

Initial velocity (m/s) Velocity Measurements
We can characterize the rifle’s performance as an
Fig. 2. Observed difference in kinetic energy of the accelerator by measuring the input and output veloci-
incoming and outgoing bearings as a function of the ties. This is easily done using photogates at the front
initial velocity.
and rear of the assembly. The bearings in this case had
a diameter of 1.59 cm, with a mass of 16.4 g. Using
with a low velocity toward the south pole of the first Vernier’s LabPro 2.1.1 interface and software, and
magnet. The magnetic force on the incoming bearing PASCO photogates, I made a number of measure-
causes it to accelerate and strike the magnet with suffi- ments of the bearing velocities. The setup is shown in
cient force that the kinetic energy transferred to the Fig. 1. A few comments are in order before presenting
second bearing on the opposite side allows it to break the results. I used electrical tape to firmly secure the
contact and move toward the second magnet. Since magnets to the ruler. The first several “shots” didn’t
this bearing is able to move to a position much closer fire. Thereafter, over the first five to 10 shots, the final
to the second magnet, it experiences a gain in energy velocity gradually got larger and larger. Apparently,
and smashes into the second magnet with even greater the magnets were too secure in the beginning, and the
force. This process is repeated for each successive out- tape restricting their motion absorbed a significant
er bearing, and the final result is that the last bearing amount of the kinetic energy during the first impact.
jumps off of the ruler like a bullet from a rifle, hence Second, I found that the lower the initial velocity, the
the name. The entire rearrangement of the system oc- more efficient the rifle. Indeed, there was a slightly
curs in roughly 1/20th of a second, and the ball leaves negative correlation between initial and final velocities
the system with such a large velocity that it has quite for initial velocities ranging from 0.2 m/s to 1.2 m/s.
an impact, both literally and figuratively. It is speculated that the lower initial velocity meant
that there was less sideways motion. This effect was

THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 41, March 2003 159

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 Potential Energy vs Bearing Position
Force vs Displacement
-2.80 16

14
-2.85
12
Potential Energy (J)

-2.90 10

Force (N)
8
-2.95
6

-3.00 4

2
-3.05
0

-3.10 -2
0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4

Bearing displacement (in) Displacement (in)

Fig. 3. Change in the potential energy of the rifle as a Fig. 4. Force on the moving bearing as a function of the
function of the accumulated displacement of the steel accumulated displacement of the steel bearings.
bearings.

more pronounced in the plot of
KE versus initial ve- problems requires knowledge of the field(s) through-
locity, as seen in Fig. 2. Thus, the rifle as designed is out space. Starting from the energy required to in-
not a good test of the work-energy theorem! duce a current I in an inductor with self-inductance
Nevertheless, we do get an approximate measure of L, equal to
the increase in kinetic energy of the moving bearing. 1
From the graph, we find that the average increase in W =  LI 2 , (1)
kinetic energy for the 28 data points considered was 2
0.224 J, with a standard deviation of 0.012 J. For an it is possible to develop an expression in terms of the
initial velocity of 0.5 m/s, this corresponds to a final magnetic field, B, for the total energy in a volume
velocity of about 5.3 m/s and an approximately ten- filled with current sources only1
fold increase in the velocity. 1
W =  兰 B 2dx 3. (2)
Energy Analysis 20 v
Assuming a perfect transfer of energy for each colli- When permanent magnets are used instead of cur-
sion, we can conclude that the kinetic energy gain ex- rent sources and nonlinear magnetic materials are
perienced by the moving bearings comes at the ex- also present, this must be rewritten in terms of both
pense of a decrease in their potential energy as they are B and the applied field, H, giving what is known as
knocked from their original position (one bearing re- the coenergy,2,3
moved from the north pole) and into direct contact
with the south pole of the neighboring magnet. Since Wc = 兰
v
[ 兰 B(H) . dH ]dx .
H

0
3 (3)
this readjustment occurs four times (counting the in-
coming bearing), the final bearing has acquired four The inner integral is necessary when nonlinear mag-
additional “units” of kinetic energy, where a “unit” is netic materials are present in order to account for the
the amount of energy gained by the bearing as it falls energy required to build the fields up from nothing.
from the “excited state” position to the “ground state” The coenergy is the appropriate form of the field
position. In this light, it is possible to consider the energy to use for constant current sources, which are
gauss rifle as a visible demonstration of the energy re- a valid model for linear, permanent magnets.3,4 It is
leased during “quantum” state transitions. important to note that for an object moving from A
A quantitative energy analysis in electromagnetic to B, an increase in the field coenergy corresponds to

160 THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 41, March 2003

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 a decrease in potential energy of the object, since the as a great tool for illustrating how transitions from ex-
energy gained by the field from the increased magne- cited to ground states can produce a sudden and pre-
tization of the object is twice that lost by the field as dictable amount of energy being released from the sys-
it does mechanical work on the object. tem. The system can be investigated in a more quanti-
This problem was modeled using the freely avail- tative way using photogate sensors, and a value for the
able finite element magnetics software FEMM 3.1, as- energy released by the system can be obtained. Unfor-
suming an axisymmetric geometry for ease of use. tunately, the efficiency of energy release is not inde-
The manufacturer of the magnets could not give a pendent of the initial velocity, with lower initial veloci-
precise energy product for the magnets, but estimated ties generally producing greater net releases of kinetic
it to be 35 MGOe. The software has 37 MGOe Nd- energy. This deficiency may be correctable with fur-
FeB in its materials library, and this was used in the ther adjustments in the design of the rifle. A very accu-
calculation. The magnets are in fact square instead of rate prediction of the amount of energy released when
cylindrical, and so to keep the volume the same, the the rifle is fired can be obtained through the use of a
height was kept at 1.2 cm, but a cylinder radius of freeware finite element magnetics software package,
0.677 cm was used. The nickel-plated steel bearings FEMM 3.1. In addition, the program can be used to
were made of a low-carbon steel, presumed to be 1020 predict the force experienced by the bearings and how
steel, whose properties are also available in the materi- the fields change as the bearings move along the ruler,
als library. The program has a built-in application ex- making the difficult association of energy and fields
tender, based on the programming language Lua, that more “real” for the students. Although the expression
allows the user to calculate the fields for a series of used to obtain the coenergy of the field is too advanced
static configurations, calculate the coenergy for each, for an introductory physics course, the idea of the ener-
and write it to a file. The potential energy was ob- gy being stored in the fields is not, so that such a tool as
tained by changing the sign of the coenergy. The FEMM 3.1 should not be beyond the students’ ability
force as a function of position can be obtained from to implement.
the positive ratio of the change in coenergy over the
change in position of the bearing. The results of the References
calculation are displayed in Figs. 3 and 4. The dis- 1. David Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics, 1st ed.
placement axis in each figure records the accumulated (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1981), Vol. I,
displacement of the bearings as the rifle propels each Chap. 7, pp. 270–271.
bearing from left to right. Thus, for example, in Fig. 2. David Meeker, Finite Element Method Magnetics Users
4, the force is acting on the first bearing over the first Manual, version 3.1 (http://femm.berlios.de/, 2002), p.
inch of displacement, on the second bearing over the 35.
next 0.67 in, etc. The step-like behavior in the poten- 3. A.E. Fitzgerald, Charles Kingsley Jr., and Alexander
tial energy is clearly displayed. In addition, the calcu- Kusko, Electric Machinery, 3rd ed. (McGraw-Hill, New
lated total change in energy of the system, E = 0.230 J, York, 1971), Vol. I, Chap. 2, p. 93.
agrees with the experimentally determined change in 4. See Ref. 2, p. 62.
the energy of the bearings to within one standard de-
viation. The force is seen to increase rapidly as a func- PACS codes: 01.40D, 01.40Eb, 01.50Fb, 01.50M
tion of decreasing separation, which is to be expected
for forces on induced magnetic moments. James A. Rabchuk is an associate professor of physics at
Western Illinois University. He earned a B.A. in physics
Summary from Grinnell College in 1984 and a Ph.D. in physics from
the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1995. His research
The gauss rifle as commonly constructed is an ex- interests are stability theory in fluids and computer simula-
tions of magnetic materials.
cellent demonstration of how kinetic energy can be
Department of Physics, Western Illinois University,
extracted from a metastable arrangement of magnets Macomb, IL 61455-1390; [email protected]
and ferromagnetic bearings. In addition to its useful-
ness in illustrating magnetic force and energy, it serves

THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 41, March 2003 161

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