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Dependence of railgun operation on current rise time
Author(s) -
Katsuki Sunao,
Sueda Tsuyoshi,
Akiyama Hidenori
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
electrical engineering in japan
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.136
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1520-6416
pISSN - 0424-7760
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1520-6416(19991130)129:3<17::aid-eej3>3.0.co;2-e
Subject(s) - railgun , current (fluid) , projectile , arc (geometry) , mechanics , waveform , acceleration , nuclear engineering , materials science , electrical engineering , aerospace engineering , physics , engineering , armature (electrical engineering) , voltage , mechanical engineering , classical mechanics , magnet , metallurgy
Railguns are facilities to accelerate projectiles up to several kilometers per second by electromagnetic force generated by driving current. Worldwide, a variety of current waveforms are used in railgun systems. This paper describes the dependence of railgun operation on the rise rate of the driving current. The use of the exploding wire as an opening switch makes it possible to change the rise time of the driving current. A secondary arc is likely to appear and the erosion on a rail surface is more severe when current with a short rise time is used. According to the nondimensional railgun simulation, current with a short rise time heats up the plasma so fast that many particles ablated from the bore surface, which seem to be the cause of the secondary arc, increase rapidly in the early phase of acceleration. © 1999 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 129(3): 17–28, 1999