Investigations on the Energy Chain for a Naval Railgun

Railguns achieve large muzzle velocities and are useful to extend the reach of large artillery systems. At gun exit velocities of above 2 km/s a heavy artillery round is able to cover distances far above 100 km. In contrast to conventional, powder-guns, railguns apply constant acceleration pressure over nearly the full barrel length, resulting in a short, compact gun. The weight and volume of the required pulsed power supply (PPS) puts currently a question mark on the ability of the railgun to replace conventional artillery guns on existing naval vessels. In this investigation, an intermediate battery storage to charge a railgun PPS is investigated using a SPICE simulation code. A battery bank is defined that allows to recharge a 75-MJ capacitor-based PPS ten times with a time in between discharges of better than 10 s.