Study of Current Pulse Form for Optimization of Railguns Forces

Electromagnetic force on rails of railgun is the effective factor which impacts on input current pulse, rails and armature geometry, dimensions, and materials. This paper investigates how the stimulated current form affects the electromagnetic force on rails. A transient analysis with a finite-element method is discussed to simulate a 3-D railgun in this paper. In the first section, we consider the effect of flat-top length of stimulated current pulse on electromagnetic force distribution on rail and armature velocities. In the second section, we consider the effect of stimulated currents that have the same areas but have various amplitudes and flat-top lengths and at the last section, the flat-top length and amplitude of current are exactly the same, but the flat-top part replaces during time. Consequences are shown in several figures.