Build Yourself a Shoulder Fired Dry Ice Canon
Everyone enjoys a good explosion or long distance launch. Learn to build your own canon project uses a simple ingredient – dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) which goes directly from solid to gas. The process called sublimation releases a lot of the built up pressure. Consider this…1 pound of dry ice turns to gas and gives you 250 liters of gas! That’s a lot of gas and a lot of latent propellant. The water fast tracks the form change of the dry ice creating an explosive propellant.
It’s essential to pay attention to the build of the canon itself with all that charged up gas. Over pressurization is a hazard. Note the careful mechanism of the canon in the video. The canon is entirely made up of steel and tightly welded together. A PET bottle is connected to the explosion chamber using a CNC adapter. Dry ice is poured into the PET bottle and water is injected through another bottle to trigger the process. The escaping gas launches a front loaded projectile through the barrel.
The added exhaust valve acts as a pressure release valve and is the first safety feature. The second one is a pressure gauge which monitors the critical pressure when the PET bottle explodes. The range according to the makers is around 80 meters. The cost? $200. The shoulder fired bazooka uses a simple chemistry principle. Fun, but serious so always use safety precautions.
Here’s more ammunition for your thoughts in our gallery of Airsoft and Gun projects.
August 18th, 2009
Hi where can I find directions on how to make this?
August 19th, 2009
Just click the link above.
August 19th, 2009
which link exactly? i have clicked multiple links and none of them have brought me to a page that shows instructions on how to create the cannon
August 22nd, 2009
oh i guess that one just has the video as a tutorial, sorry.
October 4th, 2009
cool blog