Abstract
A 1.2-m long electromagnetic railgun with separate augmentation was designed, fabricated, and tested for the purpose of injecting hypervelocity hydrogen pellets into magnetic fusion devices for refueling. A compact configuration of two pairs of coaxial rails insulated by thin Kapton film was employed. Two pulse-forming networks were used to separately control the duration, amplitude, and overlap of the current pulses. Copper sulphate resistors were employed as impedance-matching resistors and bank short resistors. The magnetic field inside the gun bore was boosted by the high current on the augmentation rails, which in turn increased the J × B force without increasing the armature current, resulting in less ablation of the gun bore and pellet. Higher acceleration was achieved due to reduced inertial and viscous drag. Using a 1.2-m augmented railgun, hydrogen pellet velocities in excess of 2.5 km/s were achieved. Hydrogen pellet accelerations as high as 4.4×106 m/s2 were achieved at a railgun current of 13.5 kA while the acceleration obtained on a conventional railgun was 2.2×106 m/s2 at 14.1 kA. Computer simulations have been performed using the finite element code MSC/EMAS to analyze the current density, magnetic field, Lorentz force, and inductance gradient of the conventional and augmented railguns.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 382-387 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | IEEE Transactions on Magnetics |
Volume | 31 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1995 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering