Have I Found the Fastest Air Cannon Valve??

I shot the world's fastest tennis ball!
Head to bit.ly/3iuj1ZW to check out the services available to you and use code TYLERB for 10% off!
Fiverr helps me achieve things with my business that I couldn't do on my own. I've used them in the past for a KZbin thumbnail because there were some things I didn't know how to do in Photoshop. I also used Fiverr to create the jingle in this video!
You can help me buy a better slow mo camera and help make these videos possible by supporting me on Patreon:
/ tylerbellmakes
How I learned to CAD (Fusion 360 tutorial):
iliketomakestuff.podia.com/fu...
You can also follow me here:
I make daily stories on Instagram
/ tylerbellmakes
/ tylerbellmakes
tylerbellmakes.com
MUSIC:
player.epidemicsound.com
www.musicbed.com

[@TylerBellMakes]

My patrons are helping me save up for a better slow mo camera! If you want to help me make better videos or want behind the scenes posts then consider supporting on Patreon: patreon.com/tylerbellmakes

[@21LOLxPRO]

resolved simple used blackpowder xD big pressure big boom a no is a canon

[@jebowlin3879]

I would like to see how this handles a diabolo round, think like pellet but tennis ball size, yes I know it sounds dangerous, but I still wonder, as far as slow motion goes, have you thought of working with the Slo-Mo guys? just curious, cant wait til the harpoon vid, Cheers

[@evilcanofdrpepper]

Have you tried using some lube on your balls? Maybe first just wet the tennis ball, then try soaking it in oil and lastly see if you can get some cow birthing lube or something like that from a farmer. I think Mythbusters found that to have the lowest coefficient of friction easily found.

[@comeradecoyote]

I think some value of comparative analysis between your design and another successful air cannon is worthwhile. If you look at the hypersonic baseball canon Destin from smarter everyday and crew build, it essentially is accomplishing similar aims to your project, but on a grander scale. Two or three features that might be worth borrowing and incorporating are; a nozzle type flow restrictor, which operates in principle like a rocket engine, in order to get high velocity flow from your air source. 2nd is a tapered plug, which allows high volumes of flow when the valve is opened, and it's easier to actuate as it can just be a pneumatic cylinder. (the tapered cone needs to pull in the opposite direction of pressure.) And 3rd is having a larger volume pressure vessel without a restrictive throat diameter.

[@generalgod4326]

Mark Robert has the fastest tennis ball

[@Gamogamer]

First thing I thought of was destin at smarter every day and his cannon but your in luck cause he shoot baseballs xD

[@JeMasLT]

Same

[@dirtbikemike2956]

Yeah I think this channel is going to be the next generation smarter every day

[@GtsAntoni1]

Only because tennis balls rip apart at their speeds 😉

[@sparkstm231]

Yep!

[@CrucialArmitage]

I was going to also recommend you check out Destin at smarter every day. I know he was shooting baseballs at speeds faster then sound.

[@GunganWorks]

I know the answer. The ball is subsonic because your airflow is subsonic. You need a de Laval (convergent-divergent) nozzle at the outlet of your tank to make the air jump from sonic to supersonic.

[@friedtomatoes4946]

This and his assumption that a ball valve at the same size as the tank opening is sufficient. That's completely wrong, you actually need to oversize it quite a lot. Like a lot a lot like twice as much if you want it to be fast. I know because I have worked on CFD where we were using high pressure air to clean diesel particulate filters. We used a popit valve and it had to be pretty oversized to open fast enough

[@AsbestosMuffins]

@@alj1993 1) hydrogen leaks through EVERYTHING and embrittles steel tanks, especially at higher pressures 2) high pressure steam generally requires a boiler license (depending on your state) because there's been enough explosions caused by it, so not easy either you're not going to be able to get the air in the cannon to go supersonic using this barrel setup

[@tensioncompressionshear4758]

I don't think that would work. De Laval nozzle allows supersonic flow across a large pressure difference, transforming pressure potential energy into kinetic energy, but for the cannon application, ideally the pressure drop from the tank to the barrel is minimal, so maximum pressure is applied to the tennis ball throughout the time it is in the barrel. The speed of sound in a flow of high pressure, room temperature nitrogen is much greater than Mach 1 so that is not a fundamental limit to the setup, evidenced by SmarterEveryday achieving 1050mph with ~550 PSI nitrogen. I think Tyler is looking at the right areas, friction in the barrel, barrel length, flow restriction, etc. I would like to contribute that he could squeeze a bit more speed of sound and energy into the gas flow by heating it up to 150-200 degrees F. Then he could say the cannon is partially powered by an electric blanket, a bonfire, or 20 gallons of boiling water, whatever the algorithm likes best!

[@0bloodshot0]

​@@tensioncompressionshear4758 pretty sure the diameter of the bottle is the "bottle neck". you are expanding to 3-4 times the diameter of the valve, the pressure loss will be too high. this and a laval nozzle should do the trick

[@martin09091989]

Thats not the problem, because if you pressure increases the speed of sound also is! Same in reverse! Thats why airliners have to stay way below the speed of sound for ground level, because in the heights they fly the speed of sound is much lower. Problem with that canon is the flow and volume of the tank. As for flow restrictions, the valeve is a big one (for a ball valve until it´s fully opend) but after this the throat and barel itself are significant! Smoothing the throat area would help alot, to avoid turbulence! For the valve a high flow cone valve would be the best choice, but those are not accessible for mortals. Hammering open a ball valve with as much violence it can handel, might be the best chois.

[@theHacksmith]

That was awesome Tyler! Definitely fun into that issue before too -- more money spent doesn't mean a better project! Looking forwards to the car door!

[@TylerBellMakes]

Thanks James!

[@crazzii_YT]

@@TylerBellMakes i think u shoud work with the hacksmith

[@Pilgrimman007]

The main limitation with your design is the flow restriction of the tank and/or valve. Also I would strongly suggest using a triggered burst disk design. Hard to explain this in a yotube comment but I'll try. You have two burst disks in sequence, where the space between the disks is pressurized to some amount below the burst pressure of the disks. Then the tank can be filled to a much higher pressure than the burst disk pressure since the pressure differential (tank pressure minus pressure of the space between the disks) is still less than the pressure to burst the disks. Then you can fire the gun by simply venting the space between the disks, thereby exposing the tank disk to the full tank pressure, rupturing it and the other disk shortly after. All the benefits of a burst disk design plus reliability and controllability since you can fire at will without any complicated things like hot wires.

[@DerSolinski]

1) Stab some holes in the tennis ball, they expand quite a lot in vacuum. They are sometimes filled with gas. 2) Your valve/feeder diameter should be at least double the size of your barrel. 3) Your Tank volume is waaaaaaaaay to small. 4) Want to use a unreasonable and unsafe amount of pressure for cheap? Try steam. Basically put some water in the tank and light it up in fire.

[@Yoshikaable]

That last one requires a boiler license if he wants to publish the video. Operating boilers is no backyard science

[@DerSolinski]

@@Yoshikaable While I agree that boilers need to be handled with utmost care since they are freaking dangerous, no he doesn't. First only about 10 states or so have that requirement Second he isn't going to sell the thing. Neither is his job to operate a powerplant. Also if he kills someone with the stupid thing, judges really don't care if he has a license or not.

[@MystryDaMachine]

Definitely need to go down and see Smarter every day's air cannon

[@WaterjetChannel]

Your air cannon is much cooler than ours. Ps you deserve more subs

[@TylerBellMakes]

Fun facts about this cannon: The fuzzy tennis ball polished the inside of the new barrel after a couple fires. This tennis ball has the kinetic energy of a 7.62x39mm AK-47 bullet.

[@rollerskdude]

Is it comparable to ancient bulky French cannons like what Napoleon used?

[@cruelfish4824]

@@rollerskdude No? Those shoot about 400 meters per second but the projectile is 180 times heavier. Those cute little napoleonic cannons have 60x more energy.

[@sweerpotato6889]

.762 mm bullet? Like a needle bullet

[@RusZugunder]

@@cruelfish4824 "almost 2 times the speed and 180 times heavier" shouldn't it be more like 300x more energy?

[@rollerskdude]

@@cruelfish4824 Thankyou

[@zippythinginvention]

Years back I was working on an avalanche control invention using compressed air and a combustible mixture to try to imitate the explosive shockwave produced by small explosive charges. I built the device around what's called a 'regulator' cannon. This is a configuration where the projectile barrel is nested inside of the pressure vessel with a void space at the back. Inside that void space is a piston with a neoprene disc on the front of it. When compressed air is put in the back of the device the Piston is pushed forward pressing the neoprene disc against the back of the barrel. Compressed air squeezes around the edges of the neoprene disc filling the pressure vessel. When you let air out the back of the device, the vacuum pulls the piston away from the barrel creating a very large aperture. Nonetheless, with only compressed air you cannot exceed the speed of sound at the muzzle. Compressed gas can only expand at a maximum of the speed of sound in that gas at whatever given temperature and pressure. As the gas expands it becomes cooler and the speed of sound becomes slower. I overcame this by injecting oxyacetylene into the pressure vessel. Igniting that also pushed back the piston, achieving supersonic muzzle velocities.

[@zippythinginvention]

Also, I had my device fabricated from HDPE. I chose that material because pyrotechnicians use it for mortars and it will never shatter. It also expands quite a bit before failure, which will occur as a split, rather than shattering, like steel or other materials. It is only 'rated' for 110psi, which was my operating pressure, before combustion. I have no idea what those pressures were. I only tried it that way during one session, at a gun range. It was easily the loudest thing present, by far. After a few shots, it refused to fire and I realized that my flawed fuel supply system was feeding oxygen into the acetylene tank. Needless to say, that was the end of those experiments. Also, the gun range asked us not to come back. LOL

[@TylerBellMakes]

Very interesting!

[@zippythinginvention]

@@TylerBellMakes I can't currently find any reference to a "regulator" gun. So, if my description isn't clear, I'll be glad to elaborate. Also, I used an solenoid powered ball valve to release the air from the back, actuating the thing. I used the circuit from a remote car starter, with one button releasing the pressure and one button lighting the spark plug.

[@CCNorse]

@@zippythinginvention HPDE might not shatter at normal temperature, but it will shatter at -45c. Had to buy a buddy a tooth after a firework accident because of this (commercial 50mm mortar loaded with the firing charge up due to human error, starshell shattered the tube, he caught about 35 grams of HPDE to the gob). I know that avalanche conditions are generally more of a concern in weather people want to ski in, but still. Be careful out there.

[@zippythinginvention]

@@CCNorse that's a really good point. The one I made was a small scale prototype, just 6' long. I can't remember the diameters. It had another 6' section that screwed on, for the projectile launching function I so enjoyed.

[@weaponizer4444]

The weak link of your design is too small air tank. You have high pressure in your air tank, but not enough Air volume. By the time the ball reach the end of the barrel the pressure drop significantly because it has to fill the whole pipe with air. Double the size of the air tank and you will see significant increase in speed.

[@Nickle314]

The other one is barrel length.

[@Nickle314]

Another option is a sabot. A plug that makes a seal, but can't expand. The ball is then in front, and compresses into a dimple. Then the sabot falls away when leaving the barrel

[@EdwinWiles]

More volume would help, but would make another problem worse. The air in the barrel acts as a spring slowing the ball (See Smarter Every Day). Pump the barrel down to the best vacuum you can.

[@Kami8705]

He did pump the barrel down to a vacuum. Increasing barrel length only helps if you have enough of an air/nitrogen supply. The Sabot will help with the soft projectile,but I agree, increasing the tank size and then barrel length are good first steps.

[@GohanSama]

@@Nickle314 Exactly. Once you have enough air volume, you have to increase barrel length to make sure the ball is accelerated for longer period of time

[@SigneOtter]

The speed of sound is the speed at which a pressure wave will travel through air. When you open the valve to the tank, the outflowing air is limited to the speed of sound. You cant accelerate an object past the speed of sound with a propellant that wont expand faster than the speed of sound. The solution is a de laval nozzle between the ball and the air tank to accelerate the flow past supersonic. It's a nozzle typically used in rockets and high performance jet engines, with geometry that makes the flow accelerate past supersonic. That way the air is supersonic, and can carry the tennis ball past the speed of sound.

[@michaelglatz1145]

You’ll be limited by the speed of sound for pretty much any air cannon, the trick is to increase the speed of sound. Using heat works well for this, a heating element inside the pressure chamber will allow you to still operate within the pressure limits of your design but increase the speed of the flow. Changing from nitrogen to helium or another light gas would work well. You could also switch back to your burst disk design, and use a high pressure propane-oxygen mixture in the air tank, which would be ignited by a spark at the back of the tank. The increased pressure and heat will burst the disk and result in much higher exit velocities

[@TheExplosiveGuy]

A fellow man of culture, I see😉. The Hybrid potato gun design principle is friggin nuts, I've built too many to count and am constantly surprised by their power. I'm planning on a 200bar oxy/propane small scale gun right now, with a 1" ID x 6" chamber with 2" thick steel walls using brass burst discs, should be pretty spicy. I've seen another guy build something similar and was getting around 3000 fps with .75"x3" steel rods as projectiles, some nutty stuff lol.

[@Weisz]

This was really interesting dude! Excellent work 🙌🏻 i always love your uploads

[@TylerBellMakes]

Thanks Louis!!

[@ionstorm66]

If you want the valve to open faster, add a slot to the connection point between the air cylinder and the valve handle. That why the air cylinder has accelerated before it cracks open the valve. You can see the air cylinder jump, then slow down, then accelerate again. This is because of the same issue the cannon has, the air isn't flowing into the cylinder fast enough to build pressure to overcome the friction of the valve. If you let the ram accelerate before it opens the valve, then you're using the rams momentum to open it, not air pressure.

[@MakeEverything]

Awesome video Tyler! I wonder if that resin filled ball could achieve a higher speed because it would have less opportunity to expand from the high pressure as its trying to get itself out of the barrel! Can’t wait to see the harpoon! Don’t die!!

[@TylerBellMakes]

Thanks Chris!! It's possible but I never found it after the plywood!

[@MakeEverything]

@@TylerBellMakes some say it’s still on its way around the planet 😂

[@unusualfabrication9937]

SmarterEveryDay wants to know your location

[@edwardleefilms]

The storytelling and and pacing of this video is insanely good. Watched and enjoyed every minute man. Those slow motion shots through the plywood were crazy!!

[@TylerBellMakes]

Thanks Ed!!

[@AmtrakBoy42]

If you think friction is slowing you down, you should try lubricating the barrel and projectile. You'll have to use lard to keep the Mythbusters references going.

[@AlphaPhoenixChannel]

Awesome stuff! I need to go watch the previous vids in this series…

[@tracybowling1156]

Gosh Tyler, no wonder you take some time between videos, you're always busy being a great inventor and a mechanic, and a super smart guy! Excellent video! I love it when you get excited about what you've achieved/accomplished!

[@TurkishLoserInc]

Your barrel needs to be longer, and you need a vacuum reservoir at the end of the barrel. When the valve is initially opened, air molecules will make it past the tennis ball, and cause drag as the tennis ball later accelerates past them. A vacuum reservoir is basically a much larger diameter portion of barrel located at the end, so that the rapidly expanding gases do not cause the interior pressure in front of the ball to increase sufficiently to cause drag. Ideally the volume of the vacuum reservoir would be as large as is feasible.

[@LostInAutism]

Oh man, you'd really get along with SmarterEveryDay, I feel like you got a while before you can beat his max speed but you're doing great! Hopefully you guys can collab in the future!

[@elliotmarks06]

I love the style of these videos! It really shows the process of your learning, and your struggles along the way!

[@comeradecoyote]

I think you had the right idea with the burst disk originally. You need something that's going to actuate within a fraction of a second. A pyrokinetic change, burst disk, or a very fast acting valve. You're also severely limited by the bore diameter of your pressure vessel. If you can overcome those two obstacles, you'll get significantly more acceleration.

[@ericlotze7724]

Coupd a pin-on-a-solenoid actuated burst disk be an option?

[@comeradecoyote]

@@ericlotze7724 Possibly? Depends on how much force that solenoid is able to actuate, and it needs to overcome the resistance of the burst disk itself. The pyrokinetic solution is good in the sense there's lots of materials that can withstand that kind of pressure but will change state with heat. But not a lot of materials that can withstand a high pressure load, but fail predictably with a little added force like from a solenoid.

[@wibblywobblyidiotvision]

Yep, burst disk is going to be the absolute fastest, but they're a bugger to fettle. Just behind a burst disk you'll find air actuated piston valves, often sold as Quick Exhaust Valves. Pretty difficult to find off the shelf in the kind of sizes you're working wth, but they are very easy to make. Even easier to make and (very) sightly less fast is the "toolies piston valve". If you're really worried about valve opening time, a hybrid approach can be used - a piston valve opening to pressurise the chamber, with the actual release being done by the pressure induced rupture of a burst disk. The idea being that your mechanical valve is almost fully open by the time burst disk opens. You /will/ need a convergent divergent nozzle to get the pressurised gas to flow faster than the speed of sound (in that gas) though. You don't need light gases, but you do need to get the gas flowing faster than the speed of sound.

[@fragkiskos2373]

Love your vids keep up the good work

[@SteveInPalmSprings]

It's very refreshing to see a young man with so much talent, inquisitiveness and drive. Keep up the great work.

[@zim6525]

Maybe a rigid low-friction sabot would help?

[@ericlotze7724]

I want to make a discarding sabot pumpkin chunkin light gas gun some day lol

[@normang3668]

The thing that always kind of has me scratching my head with these builds, is that they always seem to go down the 'potato cannon' route, when what they should probably be looking at for inspiration is paintball guns. Paintball gun valves (be it poppit valves or spool valves) are much quicker to release air pressure by design. Of course it would be much more complex to upscale a paintball gun than it would be to make a ball valve cannon, but a poppit valve would open much, much faster.

[@SeanHodgins]

This is awesome! What is your barrel to tank volume ratio?

[@TylerBellMakes]

Thanks man! 1:1

[@SegoMan]

@@TylerBellMakes Tyler, You need a bigger tank along with a smoother bore and projectile (drag coefficient comes into play here). Search up the pumpkin launchers and you will see the volume of their tanks. We used to build potato launchers fired by oxy / acetylene mixtures and ignited via a spark plug. the potato was pressed through a section of the same material the barrel was machined from for proper fitment. Keep On Keepin' On Dude!

[@dwwoodbuilds]

Love videos doing experiments like this! You're doing great Tyler!

[@davidfarmer]

I did this when i was a kid, the burst disc is ideal, but if you are crafty enough you can also make and use a piston valve, thats actuated by the pressure in the vessel, and therefore incredibly fast. dont forget to build in something to slow the piston down safely. The key really is to have a large reservoir behind the valve or burst disc that necks down the diameter of the barrel. also understand that gas can only expand so quickly.

[@tiberiu_nicolae]

Others have mentioned it but you need a convergent divergent nozzle out of the tank. Also if you think the ball squishes and rubs too much you can fit it in a sabot. Plus a giant valve.

[@jamesbennett8659]

I might humbly suggest pulling a strong vacuum in the barrel, and making a sled for the tennis ball to ride down the barrel in, to try and address the squishy friction issue. Though, having a vacuum in the barrel might cause the ball to expand in the tube/sled. Edit: I guess I missed him pulling the vacuum in the video, my bad

[@jakemakes]

He did pull a vacuum in the barrel

[@jamesbennett8659]

@@jakemakes gotcha, guess I missed that in the video. Thanks for letting me know!

[@BodaScambaits]

Awesome videos man! Love it!

[@dleespot]

You were on the right track with the burst disk. What you're essentially trying to create is a shock tube. What you need are two burst disks with different strengths. Consider this scenario; I have a tank I want to pressurize to 100 psi and then release as fast as possible. Attached to that tank I have a burst disk that will rupture at nominally 75 psi. Now the key is I need to prevent this disk from seeing a pressure differential greater than 75 psi until I want it to. So in front of this disk I’ll put another disk which will burst at nominally 50 psi and pressurize the space between them to let’s say 40 psi. Now when I pressurize my main tank to 100 psi, the first disk only sees 60 psi of differential pressure and the second only sees 40 psi, below the burst threshold for both. To trigger the system to burst I’ll begin equalizing the pressures in the space between the disks and the tank. Once the pressure between the disks is over 50 psi, the second disk should burst. Now the differential pressure acting on the first disk is 100 psi and it will burst immediately. For shock tubes, this is how you can get extremely precise pressure differentials. However you need to be VERY careful with a system like this as it is essentially fail deadly if you lose pressure in the space between the disks.

[@mikeydavis7130]

My man is a Pneumanic

[@Moonsauc3]

Awesome channel man. Looking forward for what your truck has in-store.

[@crywolfe210]

I’m blown away by your production quality and build quality! So glad I stumbled across your channel! 100% subscribing.

[@vaportrapper1825]

love the subject , big fan, keep up the grind

[@lennartvolkaerts1873]

The amount of work you put in a video is tremendous. I am really excited to see the next one. I wouldn’t want to be a car door in your neighbourhood right now 🤣

[@JC-fx6nk]

That truck idea with the harpoon sounds pretty good

[@GTL77]

Love the video! An I love your enthusiasm keep it up 👊🏽

[@leifhietala8074]

I don't know if you have made any further developments in this area, but what you need is a pilot-actuated diaphragm valve, or pilot operated piston valve. The pressure of the air itself holds the valve shut. The piston sits on the end of the cannon barrel. Both the bottom - the part of the piston against the barrel - and the top of the piston are subject to firing pressure, but air cannot leak around the piston. It's inside its own barrel with a good seal. Air CAN leak THROUGH the piston via a small passage, from the lower to upper chambers, but not to the barrel. An aperture is above the air space at the top of the piston. It's closed with a tappet valve or similar. Dislodge the tappet valve and the pressure in the top chamber dumps. Pressure on the bottom of the piston is now much higher, and blows the piston completely off the barrel. This opens a huge area very quickly for maximum gas flow. As soon as the tappet valve is released, pressure begins to build on top of the piston again, forcing it closed as air pressure from reservoir drops. Piston automatically resets as piston area on top is larger than piston area below, minus the area of the barrel cross section which is open to atmosphere. NOTE: this is how toilet flushometers work.

[@mankihonda983]

There are decades of hobbyist projects regarding pneumatic launchers online in forums, they solved the fastest valve question long ago, you need a piston valve with high flow geometry and its effective cross-sectional flow area has to be larger than that of the barrel. You achieve higher EFFECTIVE flow area by contouring the path of the flow so that it stays as laminar as possible OR you over-size the valve OR you build your launcher with multiple smaller valves that open simultaneously. If you are worried about tennis ball deformation, you may need to make it a sub caliber design and enclose the ball in a sabot, this will also make reaching super-sonic speeds easier.

[@nickfrechette19]

This is some serious quality content. New sub right here!

[@wmose3694]

it really seams like you would benefit from extending the barrel length to three or 4 times longer with a vacuum pulled that would give you longer vacuum to accelerate in and should up the speed and would be a relatively cheap thing to test while only having to modify one variable

[@GuildOfCalamity]

This channel keeps getting better and better.

[@dabj9546]

I remember year ago Jörg Sprave building a supersonic air cannon and getting huge improvements by supercharging the ball valve by opening it with tensioned rubber.

[@Leadvest]

If you fix the barrel friction, valving, nozzle issues. You also have headroom in what pressurized gas you use, Helium, and especially Hydrogen have much higher speed of sound.

[@isiTsotsi]

Yes. He could dunk the ball in oil before loading it in the cannon. The fuzzy surface of the tennis ball will hold enough for good lubrication all the way through the barrel.

[@mikemoore9757]

You might be interested in checking out a device called a Big Blaster made by Martin Engineering Co. This company also makes industrial vibration equipment. Their blaster used a differential pressure poppet valve with an air tank. The valve was extremly fast. The blaster was designed to break up material bridging in bin hoppers. I also heard where it was used to blast mine walls instead of explosives to relieve loose material and prevent cave ins. A guy told me they used concrete filled Dixie cups for the projectiles. I was at a demonstration where the salesman shot a baseball and I thought it was going to go into orbit!

[@jacobtoohey9917]

This is pretty cool man I like your style

[@TheExplosiveGuy]

Burst disc cannons are *_awesome,_* a couple decades ago when I was in my mid teens my main hobby was potato guns (back then I learned everything from an internet forum called SpudTech, currently known as SpudFiles), I have built literally hundreds of potato guns of all shapes and sizes in all three types, combustion, pnuematic, and hybrid, and the burst disc valve design was consistently found by all members of SpudTech to offer peak performance for both pnuematic and hybrid cannon designs (combustions not so much, they limit performance). It also makes reloading a _much_ more complicated task, the barrel has to be removed and the burst disc swapped every time so it wasn't popular with the everyday potato gunner, but some of us die-hards liked them. The Hybrid potato cannon is something you should also look into, you're 90% of the way there essentially. Way back when, two of our more prominent members (one of them a weapons developer for the DOD lol) were working on a burst disc pnuematic project together and got the brilliant idea to inject a stoichiometric mixture of fuel (propane) and air into a burst disc pnuematic cannon and slap in an electric igniter with the ignition pressure bursting the disc, it changed the potatogun game after they posted pictures of a refrigerator with a 3" hole through both sides (they shot it with a 3" diameter plug of concrete about 4 inches long at 800 FPS😂). The chamber of the gun has to be made very strong too, they need to be made of metal if shooting mixtures higher than 3-4 bars, Sch80 PVC will work below that (for a 2" diameter combustion chamber) but barely, steel is much preferred. A four bar fuel/air mixture will generate between 400-450 PSI at thousands of degrees F° upon ignition, and the gas can potentially undergo deflagration-to-detonation transitions if the chamber isn't designed properly which can put enormous shock stress on weaker materials. I could go on and on about this stuff but I'll end it here lol.

[@k1ngzreign336]

Great fun ! , i used to make QEV for my air gun couple years ago , its surely faster way to open

[@ahaley42]

Tyler is just the best. 🙂

[@JonLimitless]

I'd mention that there is a lot of specialty rental companies that you can pay much less to rent slow mo cameras based on your location. The camera for a slow motion setup will need a lot of light (multiple bright lights with stands and batteries depending on the location), usually a couple of speciality highspeed high capactiy hard drives (normal ones don't work, check it out) and protective shielding based on what you do (which you may already have covered) so I would suggest factoring those into your cost as well. Also thank you so much for the content and I'm always excited to see more!

[@lukescotera5219]

two potential modifications: 1.) add a de Laval to make your airflow supersonic 2.) make use of a striker and bolt valve like those found on older or cheaper paintball markers

[@BeeCzarO]

I don't know if anyone has brought this up in the previous comments (932 of them...) but I've found that the fastest acting valve is a Dust Collector Valve (or Pulse Valve). I use these for various special effects and whatnot - SMC - JSXFF-14N-5DSB PULSE VALVE. They're 1 1/2" but I believe you can get them in 2" through SMC and even bigger at other companies. Just a thought.

[@traviscapehart7590]

Not to jump into the science too quickly, i have several upgrades you might think about. Valving, this can be achieved with a tire machine component. The dump valve that empties the bead blaster portion of the tire machine is a component specially designed to empty a 6 inch diameter tank 5ft long in 1/ 10th of a second. Its useful when initially airing a tire that has been barrel stacked putting the beads close together. It blasts a huge amount of air through several nozzles to direct and capture the air inside the tire itself slamming the beads against the rim sealing itself off. This sets the tire on the rim so you can inflate it to operating pressure. Its easier to watch bead blasting tire videos than to typt it out. A small hose actuates the dump valve and if you have two resevoire and two dump valves plumbed into the same cannon im sure you could get sound barrier action. Also longer barrel

[@breathinglead871]

Airgun mad scientist here. I would recommend finding someone with some lathe skills (and a big enough lathe) to make you a scaled up version of a knock-open valve found on modern pre-charged pneumatic airguns. Obviously you'll need a big ass spring, a sear mechanism, and a cocking lever that's probably 3ft long. The idea here is that you have A LOT of gas not being put to good use. You reach max flow of the valve but way too late in the shot cycle. One thing a well engineered knock-open valve will do is open to max flow extremely rapidly (within milliseconds). The valve will also close itself with the ball about halfway down the barrel. What this creates, in turn, is a pressure gradient and, therefore, an acceleration of the expanding gases. As those gases accelerate, the ball does as well. You have way more than enough gas mass to transfer momentum into the ball, you just need that gas to go about 300fps faster to get the system (air and ball) moving at supersonic speeds. You could also just use a longer barrel, too.

[@Jayk0b]

the jingle is definitley fire ^^

[@TheSmugglersRoom]

Fantastic!!

[@jessbarkley9523]

Freakin awesome dude!!!

[@CodyTheCold748]

A longer barrel might help to give your projectile a longer time to accelerate. If you want to squeeze out every last bit of the stored energy in your tanks you could try heating them to keep gases from potentially liquefying for a split second as the pressure drops.

[@davidbell2353]

Agree, get larger tank. Some of the tank volume is filling the vacuum space of the barrel. Also, looks like the regular tennis ball may have ripped apart before hitting the steel.

[@japudjuha]

Another option for your ball valve is a straight up hydraulic ball valve, They can still be used with compressed gases but are often rated up to 6000 PSI. Awesome video man

[@ApolloSevan]

How is your channel so small?? The quality of content is up with the greats!

[@malcookie]

You definitely are an engineer!!

[@pip1973nztok]

I've played with vacuum cannons and pressure cannons. in both cases to make them easily go supersonic I use a PVC and rubber tube wadding to seal on the cannons barrel. This transfers all the available power into the projectile.

[@TomOConnor-BlobOpera]

Oh, this is just delightful, but a) You absolutely are an engineer (possibly not in the professional sense, but come over to the UK, you don't need to be a professional engineer to call yourself one). b) The intro to that jingle made me think you were rickrolling us :D c) try lubing the tennis ball. Use lard, the favoured engineering lubricant of Mythbuster's Jamie Hyneman :D

[@TylerBellMakes]

Thanks! Haha. oh yes, the lard!

[@djtonyxxx5]

you can use a pressure multiplier to increse the output pressure from your air compressor.

[@DagrtOne]

That’s bananas!! 😂😂

[@haikiri2011]

You need a speed buffer for the valve. There are is a 12v Impact driver tool that basically starts spinning internally but only engages the outside shaft when the internal part reaches a certain rpm. It basically buffers all that rotational energy and releases to the inertial tip that acts like a hammering effect on bolts you are trying to lose or tight. If you use something like that for your valve it will open way faster. Also you don't need that much gas. As you can see, the ball is way out and the gas is not even a quarter empty.

[@daniboi4270]

You should try using an electric solonoid valve, Theyre perfect for small air rifles as they activate very fast and you can wire it to a switch. im sure larger industrial ones can be bought online for very cheap

[@bobs1422]

I worked with a company that build air cannons to shoot ice balls at aircraft landing gear for safety testing. We had to breach the speed of sound as the theoretical max speed of the impact was the max speed of hail plus the max speed of the plain. We’re talking about tennis ball seize monolithic iceballs. Now, I understand ice and tennis balls behave differently in terms of rigidity and compression. But I wanted to share some insights with you, you might be able to use. 1. Burst disks are definitely the way to go. If you find them unreliable you might have the wrong kind. We could never achieve the same speeds with valves as with pressure disks. We’re talking about a complete different magnitude of opening speeds. Basically the pressure disk opens with the speed of sound in that material. 2. Validate your speed measurement. It took us months and three setups to get it right. Especially with a tennis ball that compresses easily the speed will drop rapidly. The shorter amount of distance you can get an accurate reading of, the better. 3. U need a valve for the gas to move faster. 4. The most expensive solution, but a worthwhile one, I promise you. Use a gas lighter than nitrogen. Unfortunately you only have two real options. The very expensive helium and the very dangerous (and very leaky) hydrogen.

[@orestwolfgang556]

Thats bananas

[@prjndigo]

The fastest valve for an air-cannon is to use the projectile's sabot as the diaphragm of the valve, so a sliding system that as it moves forward expands in diameter that can hold the rear of the sabot against the inlet to the "valve". This is somewhat how the cartridge crimp around a .22lr bullet works to ensure that the initial power from the rim primer doesn't simply blow the bullet into the barrel before the heat and pressure of it ignites all the powder. By using a cylindrical shuttle to control the release you can ensure even release all around by using only 3 trip-latches penetrating the barrel's pressure volume, when those are thrown the pressure immediately activates the release which unbinds the sabot AT full bore diameter. Puzzling it out? Air Chuck. You CAN operate a burst-disk system by putting pressure into the front of the barrel, when that pressure is relieved the disk will burst.

[@iwilltrytotry]

great vid! what about using some sort of plastic sabot for the tennis ball? might help mitigate the deformation.

[@ryanmalin]

Video was great! Love your work on air cannons. The 305 is a V8. It has less HP than the average V6 now. Nice truck man! The LS is gonna be a welcome improvement.

[@Dfutham]

This is why I’m here. Thanks for doing that so I didn’t have to.

[@moonliteX]

yay more air cannons

[@frogbear02]

3:20 your brothers 4 runner* XD keep up the good work man!

[@anthonywilliams379]

your best bet would be an electromagnetic valve, there were training aircraft BB machineguns in about the 20s that used compressed air to fire steel BBs from a hopper, basically you need to make a solenoid that can move a needle valve style assembly working against the air pressure, this would remove the need for springs and even allow you to minimise how long the valve stays open since soon as the power is cut the pressure will shut the valve, only catch is how are you gonna power the electromagnet.....probably gonna have to have an insulated element that will allow you to have 2 isolated contacts for energising the electromagnet, or using a non-ferrous outer shell on that segment the valve is within.

[@alexcooper5932]

I also think that with a longer barrel it would give more time for the ball to accelerate in the vacuum and be pushed faster by the air, especially if the valve doesn’t even open in time

[@StarTrekkker]

Your main problem in getting past the speed of sound, is the speed of sound it self. Gases only expand at certain speeds, which are not only determent by pressure, but also the gases specific speed of sound. To accellerate something, you hit it, with something faster. As your gas exits through a valve, that imposes lots of turbulance and restricts the flow, you lose a lot of velocity. Destin from SmarterEveryDay has created a cannon, I think you might be aiming for. He Build it as a baseball cannon. He uses a very clever custom build valve and helium, because its specific speed of sound is about four times that of nitrogen. Hope that helps.

[@nicholasn.2883]

Ok, a useful insight I can provide is to start looking for simulation tools to help better predict cannon performance. I built an air cannon for a school project this way in just a couple months with minimal fumbling around with hardware. Play around with a model and then build what performs best. If your cannon doesn't perform how you anticipated, you can quickly identify the problem by double checking the model. Unfortunately the software we used doesn't work past mach 0.4. So you're gonna have to look around for a better one or make your own. Beats buying tons of hardware and saying "this is useless" and trying to return it.

[@davideade8692]

You don't need a de Laval nozzle to exceed the speed of sound in the propellant gas. This is a common misconception. The familiar derivation for isentropic nozzle flow explicitly assumes a steady flow, which a gun is not. An excellent treatment of the topic can be found in "The Theory of High Speed Guns" (Arnold E Seigel, 1965), which is freely available online. There are many practical examples of guns that throw much faster than the initial sound speed of their propellant gas. What you need is simply higher flow, a faster opening valve, and less pressure in front of the projectile. You may also need a sabot to deal with friction from the ball. This is easy enough to test by comparing speed for a tennis ball against a rigid projectile of the same mass.

[@gossumx]

If the sides of the tennis ball are expanded into the barrel walls as the tennis ball is squished by the air from the rear, it sounds like the best option might be to making a barrel that widens as the ball travels. But you would probably need a high speed camera and a polycarbonate tube to see what’s really going on in there. Alternatively, you could add wadding to the back of the ball like they do with cannons. This would not only seal the air for a bit longer to allow it to build up greater pressure behind the ball. But could also be designed to spread out the force across the rounded back of the ball so that it doesn’t flatten out as much.

[@thomashewson]

Great video. Try lubricating the inside of the barrel to lessen the friction which may be causing the speed to plateau .

[@zeropointmx2552]

I think your conclusion at the end about the ball compressing is correct. You could combat this by using the lower pressure but having a long distance of acceleration, ie. longer barrel (just watch your volumes to maintain pressure)

[@VentureWelding]

**CHALLENGE** Make this in to a more portable version, that can break down and be packed up. Applications in particular would be using as a bait cannon for surf fishing, and also firing a tethered line to hoist up radio operators antenna coax. Operating parameters should be similar to first three iterations, and above all must operate at 2000 psi.

[@theway-offgrid9853]

Use a shell... 3D Print a split shell that prevents the ball from deforming inside the barrel. Something that catches wind and falls away at the split as the projectile leaves the barrel. This should remove the side pressure and put all the force into forward motion. Or at least a good bit more of it.

[@spiderobot]

For this to work, you’re gonna need your gas flow to be faster than the speed of sound. You won’t be able to do that with normal air unless you make it hotter or use a gas with a faster speed of sound. Idk much about super sonic flows so maybe something can work that way.

[@zippythinginvention]

See also: "Das Cannonon" which details the engineering behind the world's biggest gun attempt by the Germans during WW2. It utilized multiple combustion customers which would ignite as the projectile passed along the barrel.

[@yaykruser]

But that didnt work, guns are limeted to the speed of sound from the pushing gases

[@zippythinginvention]

@@yaykruser that is a very important limiting factor. Of course the speed of sound is much higher for a combusting gas mixture, than it is at atmospheric pressure.

[@yaykruser]

@@zippythinginvention Yeah, the heat increases it, but it only does to a certain point and then you see next to 0 increase in speed of sound. Only way to make it faster would be with a lighter gas like helium or hydrogen. Do you know why a shaped charge can reach 6km/s ? I mean its propelled by explosives producing gasses too.

[@ZXLMaster]

Remember that muzzle velocity is developed within the barrel. Will increasing barrel length improve velocity?

[@alans172]

3:40 I'm sure someone has already commented. Impulse = force x time. So you not only need pressure, you need flow to create the impulse.

[@wyldmon]

Very cool, have you considered using a sabo style carrier to eliminate drag in barrel then splits off once it exists? Whoops guess that's already been mentioned, thanks for the great content!

[@christophermhudson09]

How much energy do you think you're losing by The recoil of your rig that's holding your air cannon? Do you think if it was mounted to something that could not move at all there would be a noticeable difference or would it be too minuscule to matter?

[@sjoemie_himself]

I think Mytbusters tackled this exact problem. They used a waaayy longer barrel to give the projectile more time to travel through low (zero) air pressure as to pick up more speed before leaving the barrel. Greetings from the Netherlands, Mark

[@BasicG77]

Awesome video! What about changing the size of the barrel at the end and middle to reduce friction, maybe you have thought of this.

[@SolarSeeker45]

You can possibly get higher speeds by using a longer barrel. That will give you a longer acceleration time, however you can't break the sound barrier with an air cannon because the sound barrier is literally fastest speed that gasses are able to move. That said you CAN get above the sound barrier using a gas which has a higher sound velocity. (like helium) Bullets are technically gas powered and get above super sonic, but that gas is super heated and therefore has more kinetic energy within it.