Further development of plasma-armature railgun simulation codes at MRL

We present a critique of present railgun armature simulation codes and discuss the further development of such codes for railguns in the light of recent experimental findings. It is concluded that present models of the plasma are inadequate and that we require a model which is insensitive to the ion species making up the plasma, and which maintains constant plasma volume except for very low currents in the system. Further work includes the need to consider current distributions in the armature region, as well as the need to include the effects of friction of the projectile in the barrel.