Design, fabrication, and testing of a scalable series augmented railgun research platform

Abstract

The design and material properties of rails and projectiles are critical to the success of the Navy railgun. This thesis addresses the design, fabrication, and testing of a scalable square bore electromagnetic railgun. This railgun is designed to permit series augmented operation, and incorporates disposable rail liners to facilitate investigating the suitability of variousrail materials. A series of shots has demonstrated performance consistent with theoretical modeling, including significant performance enhancement as a result of both slotted rail geometry and augmentation over solid rail and un-augmented configurations. A capacitor based stored energy supply input of 35 kJ resulted in a measured velocity of 294 m/s for an 11.4 gram projectile. Suggestions are provided for future power supply configurations, rail materialsand surface treatments, and a variety of armature geometries.