Wax-Powered Heat Storage Is Key to General Atomics' Next-Gen Directed Energy Weapons

well there ya go, make the waxy substance hot, run that past a sterling engine and recoup your energy....ok so that wouldn't work the greatest but I'm sure there will be some sort of constructive use for that heat. If not I hope the enemy is destroyed with the first hit, cause otherwise that energy weapon will be a sitting duck for any heat seaking missle as it tries to vent that heat. No matter what they do with it though the ability to whisk away that amount of energy that fast is pretty cool.

seems that "recharge" period on lasers was more literal then we knew.

but but.. i wonder how this wax material would be at storing lighting bolt energy!!! would need a huge cavern of the stuff, with a network of semiconductor pipes.

ok here is what you do!

Put HUGE cauldrons of that wax stuff, (with resistor radiators running within it) in our vast oil emergency surplus reservoirs that we have. then you channel lighting strikes into the cauldrons that heats up the wax, that then transfers it's energy to the oil, that is then used to run steam generators to provide electricity as needed.

another idea without the wax, is just run hollow resistor pipes through some huge salt deposits, and channelling lighting through it, then extract the geothermal energy back through the pipes.

This is a coolant. It's not for storing energy, that's just a by product of what makes it good for soaking up heat from the laser so you can keep firing.

if you melt wax into a liquid before exposing it to an open flame, it explodes into a fireball. go ahead and try it using a candle and a metal spoon. better hope the containment cell doesn't rupture under pressure.

Why don't they just use the material which makes up the space shuttle tiles?

Water has an amazing specific heat, compared to other materials. That is why it is universally used as a coolant. Unfortunately, it also has a low boiling point, which is raised by adding anti freeze.

Generally the heat in the water is then vented to the air. If they have found something with a higher specific heat than water, that boils or burns at a very hight temperature, they may be on to something.

If they can re-use the heat, that would be even better, though I don't think laser weapons operate on heat put in to the device.

The ceramic tiles on the space shuttle are used to shield the craft from the extreme heat of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. They work very well as insulators because of their high thermal impedance; however, the key to successful high-powered laser operation is to remove the large amount of heat from the delicate crystals, diodes, and other sensitive electronic equipment. This equipment controls the laser and forms the beam and cannot operate at high temperatures. Therefore the shot frequency is regulated by the speed at which the heat can be removed. Increase the heat transfer rate and the fire frequency goes up.

code_jockey, that's paraffin wax. Not all wax substances are flammable and they certainly didn't specify candle wax. The waxy phase change material is different.

0.o this might make a railgun a posibillity!

-Your Friend Zunigadragon

@zunigadragon

You should look up rail guns on google or this site even, they already exist! :p
Maybe some day they'll make a hand-held variant of it or something though.

Would it be possible to pour the hot wax onto the heads of the enemy soldiers? I'm not sure, but perhaps scalding them to death would work as well as scorching them with an energy beam.