Pulsed-power and high energy plasma simulations for application to electrothermal-chemical guns

Author

Katulka, Gary L. ; Oberle, William F. ; Wren, Gloria P. ; Okamitsu, Jeffrey ; Messina, Neale A.

Author_Institution

Weapons Technol. Directorate, US Army Res. Lan., Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, USA

Volume

33

Issue

1

fYear

1997

fDate

1/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

299

Lastpage

304

Abstract

Under U.S. Army ARDEC contract DAAA21-93-D1003, Princeton Combustion Research Laboratories (PCRL) has recently completed the development of a PC-based, end-to-end electrothermal-chemical (ETC) gun ballistic simulation code called PPIB. PPIB is a time-dependent lumped-paramter, electrothermal-chemical gun ballistic simulator, which has a one-dimensional plasma submodel. The code has been validated against a 4 MJ pulsed power system, 30-mm ETC plasma experiments, and plasma capillary calculations from the stand alone Powell code. In addition, results obtained for high energy plasma simulations are also provided. Included in this study are: (1) the electrical transfer efficiencies of various plasma capillary tubes; (2) the amount of energy partitioned into internal, kinetic, and work energy; and (3) the radiant energy partitioning of the plasma inside the capillary tube during the electrical discharge. The study is concluded with an estimate of the overall energy delivered for the entire process of power supply discharge to electrical plasma generation and radiation for a given test case

Keywords

ballistics; digital simulation; electrothermal launchers; military equipment; plasma simulation; pulsed power technology; 30 mm; 4 MJ; ARDEC contract; PPIB; Princeton Combustion Research Laboratories; U.S. Army; ballistic simulation code; electrical transfer efficiencies; electrothermal-chemical guns; high energy plasma simulations; one-dimensional plasma submodel; plasma capillary calculations; plasma capillary tubes; power supply discharge; pulsed-power systems; radiant energy partitioning; Combustion; Contracts; Electron tubes; Electrothermal launching; Kinetic theory; Laboratories; Plasma applications; Plasma simulation; Power system simulation; Pulse power systems;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.559973

Filename

559973