Heat Dissipation Performance of Coaxial Cable for Electromagnetic Launch

As an important component of the electromagnetic launch (EML) system, the coaxial cable is used for power transmission between the pulse power supply (PPS) and the launcher. A 3-D transient coupling heat-transfer model is established for the coaxial cable with a liquid cooling mode based on theories of electromagnetics, heat transfer, and hydrodynamics. A temperature rise test was designed to verify the accuracy of the coupling model. The characteristics of temperature distribution and heat dissipation of the cable are analyzed, which indicates that the low thermal conductivity of the ethylene-propylene-diene monomer (EPDM) hinders the heat dissipation of the coaxial cable. To investigate the impact of thermal conductivity of EPDM, the heat dissipation performance of the coaxial cable with different EPDM is analyzed. The results show that raising the thermal conductivity of EPDM can effectively accelerate the speed of heat dissipation, improve the temperature distribution, and reduce the temperature difference in the coaxial cable, but the marginal benefit of raising the thermal conductivity of EPDM is gradually reduced. Meanwhile, using high thermal conductive EPDM can prolong the service life of the coaxial cable. This article can help to optimize the performance of the coaxial cable for the EML system.