Design and performance of a multi-stage cylindrical reconnection launcher

A multistage launcher was designed and assembled by stacking six coil assemblies end-to-end in a support housing which also aligns the system. Each coil is powered by its own capacitor bank which is triggered when an optical sensor in each stage determines that the projectile is in the firing position. The induction launch technology is successfully demonstrated for multistage systems. A 5 kg projectile can be accelerated from 12 m/s to 335 m/s with an average of 200 kJ stored in each of six stages. Calculations of launcher performance with the digital simulation code, WARP-10, are in good agreement with experiments.<
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