Design and simulation of a large muzzle kinetic energy railgun

A large muzzle kinetic energy railgun was developed to demonstrate the supersonic launch of 200mm projectiles. A trade study that evaluated over 30 different railgun cases, and resulted in the selection of a simple railgun as the choice. The goal of the railgun was to launch a 200mm diameter projectile with a mass of greater than 20kg to a velocity of 2500m/s, and the muzzle kinetic energy was more than 62MJ. The analysis and modeling of the electromagnetic launch resulted in an adequate design. The 200MJ pulsed-power-supply system was based on Capacitors. The final projectile design concluded with a 8m barrel and was characterized by the following parameters: conducting rails with an inductance gradient about 0.4μH/m, a peak current of about 7MA, an effective current of no less than 6MA, the projectile muzzle velocity of 2540m/s, the muzzle kinetic energy of more than 63MJ and the system efficiency of 31.8%. A more detailed study will be presented in this paper.