Projectile Balloting Attributable to Gun Tube Curvature

Abstract

Transverse motion of a projectile during launch is detrimental to firing accuracy, structural integrity, and/or on-board electronics performance of the projectile. One manifest contributing factor to the undesired motion is imperfect bore centerline straightness. This paper starts with the presentation of a deterministic barrel model that possesses both vertical and lateral deviations from centerline in accordance with measurement data, followed by a novel approach to simulating comprehensive barrel centerline variations for the investigation of projectile balloting^1 motions. A modern projectile was adopted for this study. In-bore projectile responses at various locations of the projectile while traveling through the simulated gun tubes were obtained. The balloting was evaluated in both time and frequency domains. Some statistical quantities and the significance were outlined.