Inductive Pulsed Power Supply for a Railgun Artillery System

The power supply for a railgun used as long-range artillery is investigated in this paper. As described in an earlier study, an 8-kg projectile is accelerated to 2500 m/s in order to bring it on a steep ballistic trajectory. To further investigate the electrical behavior of the proposed 25-MJ muzzle energy railgun, simulations with two different power supply chains, each starting with batteries, were performed. The more conventional approach uses a capacitive pulsed power supply (CPPS), the other investigated option is an inductive pulsed power supply (IPPS). An IPPS was designed in detail and set in comparison with a design of a CPPS. Parameters such as size, weight, efficiency, maximum rep-rate, and maximum shots per burst are estimated. Results show that a simple battery-inductor approach promises to be more compact but CPPS would be more energy efficient. Results give valuable support with respect to several design decisions.