TY - JOUR
T1 - A bench top railgun with distributed energy sources
AU - Mankowski, J.
AU - Dickens, J.
AU - Giesselmann, M.
AU - McDaniel, B.
AU - McHale, B.
AU - Kristiansen, M.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research as part of the Multistage EM Railguns for Affordable Access to Space MURI program.
PY - 2007/1
Y1 - 2007/1
N2 - Experimental results of a distributed energy source railgun are presented. Distributed energy source railguns were first proposed by Marshal in an asynchronous scheme and later by Parker synchronously. Both schemes employ a "traveling excitation wave" to push the projectile along the rail. The primary advantages of such a scheme over the common breech-fed is higher efficiency due to less energy remaining in the rail and lower rail resistive loses. Another advantage is the reduction in the probability of re-strike. However, these advantages are achieved at a cost of higher switching complexity. As a proof of principle experiment, we have constructed a bench-top solid armature railgun with distributed energy sources. Instead of a single, capacitive, breech-fed, energy source, the current is supplied by two storage capacitor banks, placed at different positions along the rail. The switching configuration, which requires a dedicated switch at each capacitor, is realized with sold state switches. The railgun is diagnosed in order to evaluate performance and to appropriately trigger the switches. In addition, experimental results are compared to simulation.
AB - Experimental results of a distributed energy source railgun are presented. Distributed energy source railguns were first proposed by Marshal in an asynchronous scheme and later by Parker synchronously. Both schemes employ a "traveling excitation wave" to push the projectile along the rail. The primary advantages of such a scheme over the common breech-fed is higher efficiency due to less energy remaining in the rail and lower rail resistive loses. Another advantage is the reduction in the probability of re-strike. However, these advantages are achieved at a cost of higher switching complexity. As a proof of principle experiment, we have constructed a bench-top solid armature railgun with distributed energy sources. Instead of a single, capacitive, breech-fed, energy source, the current is supplied by two storage capacitor banks, placed at different positions along the rail. The switching configuration, which requires a dedicated switch at each capacitor, is realized with sold state switches. The railgun is diagnosed in order to evaluate performance and to appropriately trigger the switches. In addition, experimental results are compared to simulation.
KW - Capacitive energy storage
KW - Electromagnetic launching
KW - Electromagnetic launching power supplies
KW - Railgun power supplies
KW - Railguns
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33846242535&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TMAG.2006.887713
DO - 10.1109/TMAG.2006.887713
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33846242535
SN - 0018-9464
VL - 43
SP - 167
EP - 169
JO - IEEE Transactions on Magnetics
JF - IEEE Transactions on Magnetics
IS - 1
ER -