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2013•IEEE Transactions on Plasma ScienceRequires access

Design and Simulation of a Large Muzzle Kinetic Energy Railgun

Zizhou Su, Wei Guo, Tao Zhang, Honghai Zhang, Zhiqiang Dong, Junyi Yang, Bin Cao

Open publisher page 9 citations

Abstract

A large muzzle kinetic energy railgun is developed to demonstrate the supersonic launch of 200 mm projectiles. A trade is studied that evaluates over 30 different railgun cases resulted in the selection of a simple railgun as the choice. The goal of the railgun launches a 200 mm diameter projectile with a mass of greater 20 kg to a velocity of 2500 m/s, and the muzzle kinetic energy is more than 62 MJ. The analysis and modeling of the electromagnetic launch results in an adequate design. The final railgun is designed with an 8 m barrel and characterized by the following parameters: conducting rails with an inductance gradient about 0.4 μH/m, a peak current of about 7 MA, an effective current of no <; 6 MA, the projectile muzzle velocity of 2540 m/s, the muzzle kinetic energy of more than 63 MJ, and the system efficiency of 31.8%. A more detailed study is presented in this paper.

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What this paper is about

A large muzzle kinetic energy railgun is developed to demonstrate the supersonic launch of 200 mm projectiles. A trade is studied that evaluates over 30 different railgun cases resulted in the selection of a simple railgun as the choice. The goal of the railgun launches a 200 mm diameter projectile with a mass of greater 20 kg to a velocity of 2500 m/s, and the muzzle kinetic energy is more than 62 MJ. The analysis and modeling of the electromagnetic launch results in an adequate design. The final railgun is designed with an 8 m barrel and characterized by the following parameters: conducting rails with an inductance gradient about 0.4 μH/m, a peak current of about 7 MA, an effective current of no <; 6 MA, the projectile muzzle velocity of 2540 m/s, the muzzle kinetic energy of more than 63 MJ, and the system efficiency of 31.8%. A more detailed study is presented in this paper.

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OpenAlex reports 9 citations for this work. Citation counts describe recorded attention and do not establish research quality.

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Available abstract

A large muzzle kinetic energy railgun is developed to demonstrate the supersonic launch of 200 mm projectiles. A trade is studied that evaluates over 30 different railgun cases resulted in the selection of a simple railgun as the choice. The goal of the railgun launches a 200 mm diameter projectile with a mass of greater 20 kg to a velocity of 2500 m/s, and the muzzle kinetic energy is more than 62 MJ. The analysis and modeling of the electromagnetic launch results in an adequate design. The final railgun is designed with an 8 m barrel and characterized by the following parameters: conducting rails with an inductance gradient about 0.4 μH/m, a peak current of about 7 MA, an effective current of no <; 6 MA, the projectile muzzle velocity of 2540 m/s, the muzzle kinetic energy of more than 63 MJ, and the system efficiency of 31.8%. A more detailed study is presented in this paper.

Key concepts: Railgun, Projectile, Muzzle, Muzzle velocity, Kinetic energy, Aerospace engineering, Nuclear engineering, Mechanics

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