Would Physics Allow For a Plasma Railgun Or Coil Gun?

[Spacescifi]

The issue with railguns is that they degrade from friction.

Would it be possible to use plasma to propel a projectile at railgun velocities instead?

Cooling we can do easily.. especially with a navy ship in the ocean.

Spare no expense for power. . I don't care if you have to rig up a NSWR and rig it to power the plasma railgun.

We already know nukes can propel stuff, so should it not be possible to rig plasma in a way to propel a projectile at railgun velocities?

 

Secondary: With railguns the friction wears them out, but with a plasma railgun, hopefully friction woukd not be a factor. Only cooling it. Which we can do.

Edited Thursday at 02:36 PM by Spacescifi

[Terwin]

To not have the rails degrade from friction, you will need to use plasma for the projectile, at which point you are pushing a self-repulsive gas out of your barrel at high speed where it will immediately disperse into a (possibly strong) breeze as it distributes it's energy to the surrounding air.

If you are talking about using a dense plasma buffer to protect the rail, then you are talking about using incredibly powerful magnetic fields to contain the plasma between two electrical conductors trying to use their own magnetic fields to push against each other.

Sounds like the sort of thing that might be possible as a vanity project in a type 3 civilization by using a majority of the energy output of a star, but would not be nearly as effective as just using your power source to power a big laser or something.

[magnemoe]

Saw this idea somewhere else,  this was kind of an barrel extension to a railgun, I say it scales hard with distance between the rails so it would not work for an 30 mm gun but might for battleship sized shells. 
On the other hand launching stuff like icbm or fighters an coilgun probably is better. 
I also saw an fun idea using an shell with an coil to let the shell do the changing magnetic fields, make the shells more complex but not an issue for autocannon rounds. 

[Nuke]

see project marauder. rings of plasma have sufficient self containment characteristics that it can hold its form while being accelerated to hypersonic velocities. no real physical impact other than rapid surface heating and emp effects.

Edited 12 hours ago by Nuke

[Spacescifi]

16 minutes ago, Nuke said:

see project marauder. rings of plasma have sufficient self containment characteristics that it can hold its form while being accelerated to hypersonic velocities. no real physical impact other than rapid surface heating and emp effects.

I am aware of it. But did they ever share if the plasma rings were fired out horizontally or standing vertically like zeros?

Hard to know how to visualize it, but if I had to guess I would assume horizontal.

[Nuke]

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

I am aware of it. But did they ever share if the plasma rings were fired out horizontally or standing vertically like zeros?

Hard to know how to visualize it, but if I had to guess I would assume horizontal.

rumor is that it was so successful they quickly classified all the data. but thats not really evidence of the thing existing or working.