An internal ballistic model of electromagnetic railgun based on PFN coupled with multi-physical field and experimental validation

Abstract

To accelerate the practicality of electromagnetic railguns, it is necessary to use a combination of three-dimensional numerical simulation and experiments to study the mechanism of bore damage. In this paper, a three-dimensional numerical model of the augmented railgun with four parallel unconventional rails is introduced to simulate the internal ballistic process and realize the multi-physics field coupling calculation of the rail gun, and a test experiment of a medium-caliber electromagnetic launcher powered by pulse formation network (PFN) is carried out. Various test methods such as spectrometer, fiber grating and high-speed camera are used to test several parameters such as muzzle initial velocity, transient magnetic field strength and stress-strain of rail. Combining the simulation results and experimental data, the damage condition of the contact surface is analyzed.

Keywords

• Internal ballistic modeling
• Electromagnetic rail gun
• Multi-physics field coupling
• Experimental validation
• PFN