An Investigation of Internal Gas Dynamics for an Electrothermal Launcher

The Institute for Advanced Technology has been conducting experiments on plasma-armature railguns for the past several years. To control the damage mechanisms associated with this class of railgun, an electrothermal (ET) launcher preinjects the projectile into the plasma railgun bore milliseconds be...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on plasma science 2011-02, Vol.39 (2), p.802-808
Main Authors: Motes, D, Crawford, M, Ellzey, J, Stefani, F, Wetz, D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ablation
Activation
Codes
Discharges
Doppler effect
Electrothermal (ET) launcher
Gas dynamics
Gases
Ionization
Launchers
Partial discharges
Plasma
plasma-armature railgun
Plasmas
Pressure
Projectiles
Propellants
Railguns
Velocity
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Summary:The Institute for Advanced Technology has been conducting experiments on plasma-armature railguns for the past several years. To control the damage mechanisms associated with this class of railgun, an electrothermal (ET) launcher preinjects the projectile into the plasma railgun bore milliseconds before the arc is energized. During the initial testing of the ET launcher, it was found that injection velocities were significantly lower than expected for a given input energy. Subsequent experiments using photonic Doppler velocimetry to resolve velocity as a function of time confirmed this finding. Using an ablative capillary discharge code written by Powell and Zielinski in 1991, the velocity discrepancy is analyzed, and the properties of the propellant gas-such as ionization fractions, the mass of the propellant gas, and the magnitude and decay of the pressure pulse seen by the projectile-are determined.
ISSN:0093-3813
1939-9375
DOI:10.1109/TPS.2010.2092444