Design and testing of the power electronics for the cannon caliber electromagnetic gun system

Author

Penney, C.E. ; Hotz, T.J. ; Kitzmiller, J.R. ; Werst, M.D.

Author_Institution

Center for Electromech., Texas Univ., Austin, TX, USA

Volume

33

Issue

1

fYear

1997

fDate

1/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

484

Lastpage

489

Abstract

The University of Texas Center for Electromechanics (UT-CEM) is in the final fabrication and testing phase of a power electronics system required to operate a skid mounted compulsator-driven railgun. Design goals for the self-excited air core compulsator include a 95 MW rectifier/inverter bridge for field coil self-excitation. Initial field coil seed energy is supplied by a 50 kJ capacitive discharge from the field initiation module. The field coil is passively protected from voltage transients by an array of metal oxide varistors. Other system power modules include the gun closing switch and explosive opening switch. This paper presents a brief system overview and detailed design of the rectifier/inverter bridge module with performance data from shots up to 6

Keywords

bridge circuits; coils; invertors; power electronics; power supplies to apparatus; pulsed power technology; railguns; solid-state rectifiers; varistors; 50 kJ; 95 MW; UT-CEM; cannon caliber electromagnetic gun system; capacitive discharge; explosive opening switch; field coil seed energy; field coil self-excitation; field initiation module; gun closing switch; metal oxide varistors; power electronics; rectifier/inverter bridge; skid mounted compulsator-driven railgun; voltage transients; Bridge circuits; Coils; Electronic equipment testing; Fabrication; Inverters; Power electronics; Railguns; Rectifiers; Switches; System testing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.560060

Filename

560060