A coilgun design primer

The author explains how an inductive coilgun works and presents the factors which go into its design. The objective is to obtain algebraic expressions which, although crude, provide useful predictors of behavior, illustrate the dependence on parameters, and suggest ways to optimize the design. Detailed simulation of the gun´s behavior is obtained from the computer code SLINGSHOT. Three coilgun designs are presented as examples: an experiment designed to achieve hypervelocity with a 400-g projectile, a long-range gun for naval applications using a 60-kg projectile, and a 1000-kg payload Earth-to-orbit launcher