Operational requirements and issues for coilgun electromagnetic launchers

Coilgun electromagnetic launchers have capability for low- and high-speed applications. Through the development of four guns having projectiles ranging from 10 g to 5 kg and speeds up to 1 km/s, Sandia National Laboratories has succeeded in coilgun design and operations, validating the computational...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on magnetics 2005-01, Vol.41 (1), p.194-199
Main Author: Kaye, R.J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceleration
Active control
Applied sciences
Circuit analysis
Coilguns
Coiling
Coils
Control systems
Design engineering
electromagnetic induction
Electromagnetic launching
Exact sciences and technology
Feedback
Guns
High speed
Laboratories
Launchers
Magnetism
Other techniques and industries
Projectiles
software verification and validation
statistics
switched capacitor circuits
Switches
timing jitter
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Coilgun electromagnetic launchers have capability for low- and high-speed applications. Through the development of four guns having projectiles ranging from 10 g to 5 kg and speeds up to 1 km/s, Sandia National Laboratories has succeeded in coilgun design and operations, validating the computational codes and basis for gun system control. Coilguns developed at Sandia consist of many coils stacked end-to-end forming a barrel, with each coil energized in sequence to create a traveling magnetic wave that accelerates a projectile. Active tracking of the projectile location during launch provides precise feedback to control when the coils are triggered to create this wave. However, optimum performance depends also on selection of coil parameters. This paper discusses issues related to coilgun design and control such as tradeoffs in geometry and circuit parameters to achieve the necessary current risetime to establish the energy in the coils. The impact of switch jitter on gun performance is also assessed for high-speed applications.
ISSN:0018-9464
1941-0069
DOI:10.1109/TMAG.2004.838982