Design and testing of a coaxial opening switch and solid state closing switch for the cannon caliber electromagnetic launcher system (CCEML)

The Center for Electromechanics at The University of Texas (CEM-UT) is in the final fabrication and testing phase of the cannon caliber electromagnetic launcher system (CCEML). The objective of the CCEML program is to develop an electromagnetic cannon caliber launcher (30 mm) and power supply capable of firing three, five round salvos at a rate of 5 Hz. The scope of this paper is design and testing of the CCEML gun discharge subsystem, which consists of an explosive opening switch (EOS) and a thyristor gun closing switch module (GSM). The first part of the paper covers component development. In the second part, performance data of both switches is presented including high current EOS performance and GSM turn-on, turn-off, and parallel thyristor sharing data.