Recent Pseudo-Liquid Armature Experiments with Details of the Test Systems

The pseudo-liquid (PSL) armature with air-spring is a novel railgun armature, which has lower mass and more compliance than conventional C-shaped armature. The united research group leaded by Beijing Institute of Special Electromechanical Technology (BISET) has completed a lot of experiments of the PSL armatures with air-spring since 2004. The results of these experiments show this armature can prevent transition with some conditions. This paper presents an overview of PSL armature program including the pulsed power supply, two rail launchers (SRL1 and SRL3), projectiles and some experimental results. As the best result of SRL1 rail launcher tests, it is obtained that muzzle velocity of 1.1 km/s with a 52 g mass. The best performance of SRL3 launcher tests is muzzle velocity of 1.92 km/s with a 45 g mass operating at a stored energy of 1.39 MJ and a flat-top current of 400 kA with about 1.5 ms pulse duration. The further experimental studies are being continued.