Experimental Investigation of a Three-Stage Railgun Incorporating Puff-Switching

摘要

A sequence of four firings of a 2.4 m long, 10 mm square bore railgun is described and analyzed. The railgun comprised an injection stage, a breech power source and a second power source which was connected by a puff-switch. The report deals with the puff-switching results, distribution of current in the plasma, the proportion of the projectile kinetic energy due to plasma expansion forces as compared to electromagnetic forces, the correlation of rail damage with current and plasma length, and velocity limitation according to the ablation model.