Railgun modeling with the P-Spice code

Author

Wey, J. ; Spahn, E. ; Lichtenberger, M.

Author_Institution

French-German Res. Inst., Saint-Louis, France

Volume

33

Issue

1

fYear

1997

fDate

1/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

619

Lastpage

624

Abstract

Starting from the conventional modeling of the railgun as an electrical circuit coupled to a mechanical system, we have developed our own model including detailed behavior of aspects of electrical components such as non linearity of the resistance and charge accumulated in semiconductors. This permits an accurate modeling of sensitive devices like switching semiconductor diodes (crowbar). In a second approach, we incorporated the velocity skin effect by using a one dimensional approximation. The results are compared to measurements obtained on a DES (Distributed Energy Storage) capacitor driven railgun (PRESTUDY PEGASUS) with a stored energy of 2.8 MJ and a 50 mm round bore. The calculated currents and velocity are in good agreement with the measurements. Voltages and energy distribution in different parts of the circuit are also compared, to obtain information of the loss mechanism in our railgun. Fault analysis of the switching modules is also described

Keywords

SPICE; electrical engineering computing; equivalent circuits; fault diagnosis; modelling; railguns; skin effect; 2.8 MJ; 50 mm; DES capacitor driven railgun; P-Spice code; PRESTUDY PEGASUS; PSPICE; crowbar; distributed energy storage; electrical circuit; energy distribution; fault analysis; loss mechanism; mechanical system; one dimensional approximation; railgun modeling; switching modules; switching semiconductor diodes; velocity skin effect; Coupling circuits; Electric resistance; Electrical resistance measurement; Energy measurement; Energy storage; Linearity; Mechanical systems; Railguns; Semiconductor diodes; Skin effect;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9464

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/20.560085

Filename

560085