Observation and simulation of solid-armature railgun performance

A model previously developed to investigate current and heat transport in solid-armature railguns is extended. The model is two dimensional and involves the solution of coupled Maxwell and heat transport equations in both the armature and rails. The principal extensions include the development of a transformation that maps an armature of fairly arbitrary shape in a rectangular computational region, and the inclusion of melting within the appropriate governing equations. The model is applied to analyze an armature under recent experimental study. Temperature and induction-field profiles are calculated as functions of both space and time. Recent experimental data, indicative of the performance of the armature, are also presented and correlated where possible with results of the calculations