A Novel Technique for Dynamic Analysis of an Electromagnetic Rail Launcher using FEM Coupled with Simplorer

Abstract

The performance of a rail gun depends on the current density distribution over the rail and armature as it determines the force that accelerates the projectile of the rail gun. A finite element method (FEM) coupled with Simplorer was developed to model and study the performance of the rail gun. The rail gun was modeled using an ANSYS eddy current field solver to determine the current density distribution and equivalent rail gun circuit for the given rail gun geometry. The armature velocity was then calculated using Simplorer by coupling the obtained equivalent rail gun circuit and exciting the rails using a capacitor-based pulsed power supply (PPS) system. The FEM coupled with Simplorer method was verified by numerical calculations for the rectangular rails and also with other researchers’ value, and that showed a good agreement between the results. Further, the current density distribution over rails and armature and velocity of the armature was calculated for different rail cross sections such as circular concave, circular convex, rectangular concave, rectangular convex, T-shaped concave, and T-shaped convex with a C-shaped armature. It was observed that the circular convex rail gun with C-shaped armature showed minimum current density distribution and gives a higher value of armature velocity compared with other rail gun structures. Thus, the circular convex armature was found to be suitable for the electromagnetic (EM) rail gun launchingsystem.