It’s hard to think about just how useful an air cannon would be, isn’t it? For all intents and purposes, it’s great at knocking over empty cardboard boxes, but the implications here feel as though they could be greater than breaking an arbitrary record. In fact, they have been in use quite extensively for decades since they’re used in various types of construction and have been modified throughout the years to be even more useful. Of course, the air cannons used in construction aren’t human-powered such as this one, and it’s likely that their range isn’t nearly as good, but there is still the question of whether or not a high-powered jet of air could be made to farther than a drum blast that sends a shockwave forward and can only travel for a certain distance before completely dissipating. As one can see in the clip below it can go for a while before losing a great deal of its force, but at around 100 meters it can be seen that the shockwave is beginning to fade out and is growing substantially weaker. If powered by a winch or something else and modified so that it can take the strength of the shockwave, it feels possible that this method could prove to be more than a little forceful at close range and could even knock a person to their back if the draw was strong enough.
The dynamics of an air cannon can get a little technical and be a bit difficult to understand since there is a bit more to it than we’re seeing, especially when it comes to constructing the cannon and understanding the process of it. But for those that feel that it’s a fun and very interesting idea that can be used for amusement, that’s really all that’s needed. Anything else at this point is simply another detail that some people will understand and appreciate and others might not fully comprehend since, well, not all of us are engineers with a need to understand how things work and how to improve upon them. Those that are though are the people that a lot of us rely on since they happen to be the ones that will make experiments such as this in order to see how things can be made better and to serve a more efficient purpose. It’s easy to be thankful when the more useful applications of such designs are seen, but stuff like this makes it look as though it’s for fun and for the purpose of getting a certificate saying that achieved a fun goal that didn’t have a very useful application. Oh well, it was fun to watch.
Plus, there’s nothing that’s ever really useless when it comes to figuring out how things work since any idea can be applied to one facet of life or another if one uses their imagination. Whether it’s going to be practical or not is hard to say, but an air cannon in a different form does have a practical use and it’s been implemented since the 1970s. The thought process behind the clip above is definitely something that feels like a project meant more for sheer interest than anything else, but it did produce an impressive effect that can be measured for a way before the smoke gives out and the effect of the shockwave is all that can be seen. Overall this would be a fun experiment to perform with friends and colleagues, but anything other than that might require a bit of an explanation if further funding happened to be needed. A lot of people that give to projects like this want to know where their money is going, and for good reason since this had to cost a decent amount to set up, not to mention needing a space in which to conduct the experiment. One has to wonder whether the guys running this owned, leased, or rented the space or simply knew someone that owned it, or had special permission to perform this act within the confines. In any case, it was definitely a good spot to conduct the experiment since otherwise, had it been done outside, it feels certain that too many variables would need to be taken into account when it came to letting go with one shockwave after another.
Maybe that’s why an air cannon never really took off as a military idea, though there do seem to be other factors that might come into play, mainly those that would kind of negate the whole ‘air battering ram’ idea that’s more likely to be useful in D&D than in the real world. To be certain, this is kind of an interesting idea, and seeing it implemented like this is definitely something that a person might see as a good time.
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