Development and validation of the ARDEC Army Railgun Modular Simulator (ARMS)

An electric gun computer simulation code has been developed, tested, and validated at the Army Research and Development Engineering Center (ARDEC). The Army Railgun Modular Simulator (ARMS) is a railgun and pulse power supply numerical code that predicts the time-variant response of a coupled electromechanical system. The ARMS code is a PC-based program which uses a user-friendly input interface called the Designer and a companion numerical simulator called the Simulator. Both the Designer and Simulator use a building block, or modular, approach to modeling a complete EM gun system. With this approach the computer program is readily reconfigurable and adaptive to the changing needs of the experimentalist and program manager alike. An overview of the current status, features, program architecture, mathematical rationale, and future software directions for the ARMS code is presented