Analysis of Electric Parameters of a PPS System and Their Influence on Muzzle Velocity in Electromagnetic Railguns

A 500 kJ compact pulsed power supply (PPS) system used for electromagnetic railgun (EMG) system has been developed to investigate the influence of electric parameters on muzzle velocity in the paper, from which the stability and reliability of the PPS system can be evaluated. The pulsed power supply system consists of ten modules, and each module is composed of a high energy density capacitor, a triggered vacuum switch, a pulse shaping inductor, a dump resistor and a crowbar. Influence of different parameters on the velocity was analyzed by ATP simulations in this paper. The parameters include capacitance, equivalent series resistance (ESR) of the capacitor, inductance, natural electric parameter and jitter time of the TVS. The ESR and natural electric parameters are critical influencing factors by comparing the simulation and experimental results. In the end, muzzle velocity deduced by the current, which is obtained from a new model of actual circuit, is about twenty percent lower than that in ideal condition. It is pointed out that the velocity error is mostly caused by ESR and natural electric parameter.