Using the SR3-60 railgun in augmented mode

Augmentation is a well known method to increase the velocity of railgun projectiles, while at the same time keeping the driving currents down. At the French-German Research Institute (ISL) several experiments using augmented railguns were performed. Here we report on a study using the SR3-60 as a augmented railgun. The SR3-60 is a 2 m long railgun composed of 3 identical pairs of rails, being rotated by an angle of 60° with respect to each other. This railgun offers flexibility in usage. In earlier experiments it was used to accelerate a single projectile using a serial or overlapping configuration of the rail pairs, to enable a fire-rate of 400 Hz or to accelerate a strongly segmented projectile. In this investigation a brush armature projectile with a 20 g payload is accelerated using one pair, while the other 2 pairs are connected in series to augment the magnetic field inside the railgun. A series of shots with and without augmentation are performed and discussed.