Development of a railgun test-bench and methodology for muzzle voltage noise analysis

This work presents the design, development, and initial testing results of a small bore railgun and test-bench for the study of muzzle voltage traces. An analysis of the noise observed on voltage traces taken from the muzzle during operation is presented and discussed. Velocities for a 3.38 g projectile average 50 m/s over a series of 21 tests. The railgun is powered by a sequentially-fired pulse forming network consisting of six electrolytic capacitor banks. Typical V-I characteristics are approximately 20 kA peak current at 275 V for a 6 ms pulse length. Noise root-mean-square voltage and noise margins are extracted from the muzzle voltage waveforms and discussed. This investigation also develops a quantitative method to analyze muzzle voltage noise which can be applied to any electromagnetic launcher.