Study of the propulsion strength of the rails launcher

This paper carries on a contribution to the survey of an electromagnetic propulsion system, the rails launcher. The main objective of this paper concerns the study of the strength and its repartition on the projectile according to the architecture and the dimensions of the launcher. For this purpose, various prototypes are proposed and analyzed using a 3D finite elements calculation code under FEMLAB package. The difference between prototypes concerns a rails shape; frame characteristics of rails and projectiles and the injection mode of the currents in the rails.