Study of a new railgun configuration with perforated sidewalls

Conference · Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1993 · IEEE Transactions on Magnetics (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States)

OSTI ID:5871688

Zhang, J; Kim, K; King, T L ^[1]

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1. Fusion Technology and Charged Particle Research Lab., Urbana, IL (United States)

A new railgun configuration with perforated sidewalls is investigated. The motivation for this new configuration is the desire to minimize the detrimental effects of inertial and viscous drag at high velocities caused by the debris from the projectile and the gun wall trapped in the plasma armature. The test has been done on a 1.2 m long railgun with a 3.2-mm-diameter bore. Results for hydrogen pellet acceleration show that at high currents the perforated railgun outperforms the unperforated one. Combined with a newly designed cryogenic pellet generator and the first stage gas gun, a solid hydrogen pellet velocity of 2.46 km/s has been achieved on the 1.2-m railgun.

• DOE Contract Number: FG02-84ER52111
• OSTI ID: 5871688
• Report Number(s): CONF-9204102-; CODEN: IEMGAQ
• Journal Information: IEEE Transactions on Magnetics (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States), Vol. 29:1; Conference: 6. symposium on electromagnetic launch technology, Austin, TX (United States), 28-30 Apr 1992; ISSN 0018-9464
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
Fu
RAILGUN ACCELERATORS
DESIGN
TOKAMAK TYPE REACTORS
FUEL FEEDING SYSTEMS
ARMATURES
DRAG
PELLET INJECTION
PROJECTILES
THERMONUCLEAR REACTOR FUELING
WALLS
ACCELERATORS
FUEL SYSTEMS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS
700460* - Fusion Technology- Heating & Fueling Systems
Fuels- (1992)