TY - GEN
T1 - A bench top railgun with distributed energy sources and diagonostics
AU - McDaniel, Bryan T.
AU - Mankowski, John J.
AU - Wetz, David
AU - McHale, Brent
AU - Kristiansen, Magne
PY - 2006/1/1
Y1 - 2006/1/1
N2 - The experimental results of a five stage distributed energy source railgun are presented. The advantages of such a scheme are increased efficiency due to less energy remaining in the railgun inductance and lower rail resistive losses. The design is a bench top 81 cm long solid armature railgun with a 1.27 cm × 1.27 cm bore cross-section separating the 1.27 cm × 2.54 cm copper rails. Multiple capacitive storage banks are connected at different positions along the length of the rails. Each bank is composed of electrolytic capacitors, toroidal inductors, SCRs, and free-wheeling diodes. The primary bank (stage 1) can store 11.6 kJ, and the other stages store 5.8 kJ of energy. The diagnostics include Rogowski coils at each bank, a flux ruler along the entire railgun to monitor the armature's velocity, and B-dots. The switches are controlled by pulsers with fiber optic inputs, which accurately trigger the SCRs. To sequence trigger the storage banks, B-dot sensors provide feedback to the armature's position. Additionally, experimental results are compared to PSPICE simulations.
AB - The experimental results of a five stage distributed energy source railgun are presented. The advantages of such a scheme are increased efficiency due to less energy remaining in the railgun inductance and lower rail resistive losses. The design is a bench top 81 cm long solid armature railgun with a 1.27 cm × 1.27 cm bore cross-section separating the 1.27 cm × 2.54 cm copper rails. Multiple capacitive storage banks are connected at different positions along the length of the rails. Each bank is composed of electrolytic capacitors, toroidal inductors, SCRs, and free-wheeling diodes. The primary bank (stage 1) can store 11.6 kJ, and the other stages store 5.8 kJ of energy. The diagnostics include Rogowski coils at each bank, a flux ruler along the entire railgun to monitor the armature's velocity, and B-dots. The switches are controlled by pulsers with fiber optic inputs, which accurately trigger the SCRs. To sequence trigger the storage banks, B-dot sensors provide feedback to the armature's position. Additionally, experimental results are compared to PSPICE simulations.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=49149121487&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/MEGAGUSS.2006.4530677
DO - 10.1109/MEGAGUSS.2006.4530677
M3 - Conference contribution
SN - 9781424420612
T3 - 2006 International Conference on Megagauss Magnetic Field Generation and Related Topics, including the International Workshop on High Energy Liners and High Energy Density Applications, MEGAGAUSS
SP - 185
EP - 190
BT - 2006 International Conference on Megagauss Magnetic Field Generation and Related Topics, including the International Workshop on High Energy Liners and High Energy Density Applications, MEGAGAUSS
PB - IEEE Computer Society
Y2 - 5 November 2006 through 10 November 2006
ER -