Development of an induction type railgun

• Published in: IEEE transactions on magnetics Vol. 37; no. 1; pp. 470 - 472
• Main Authors: Yamori, A., Ono, Y., Kubo, H., Kono, M., Kawashima, N.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.01.2001; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Acceleration; Applied sciences; Capacitor banks; Capacitors; Circuits; Cities and towns; Conferences; Electrical engineering. Electrical power engineering; Elongation; Exact sciences and technology; Internal energy; Magnetic levitation, propulsion and control devices; Magnetism; Miscellaneous; Plasma accelerators; Projectiles; Railguns; Rails; Reduction; Space technology; Various equipment and components; Theoretical study; Railgun accelerators; Electromagnetic launchers; Induction; Concrete reinforcement; Magnetic suspension
• ISSN: 0018-9464; 1941-0069
• DOI: 10.1109/20.911879

The remarkable feature of the induction type railgun is to enhance a plasma armature by transferring some part of a secondary arc current with an induction effect during the process of accelerating a projectile. Since the last conference we have built a new experimental system including an improved induction type railgun and a capacitor bank of a higher stored energy. This paper describes the experimental results obtained by the new experimental system. We performed the experiments both in a conventional railgun mode and an induction type railgun mode to compare their results. Not only an increase of the projectile velocity but also a reduction of the elongation of the plasma armature was observed in the induction type railgun mode. The projectile velocity increased from 2.4 km/s to 2.7 km/s, and the length of the plasma armature decreased from 26 cm to 20 cm.