The ISL Rapid Fire Railgun Project RAFIRA Part I: Technical Aspects and Design Considerations

This paper reports on the progress made within the rapid fire railgun (RAFIRA) project recently launched at the ISL. The goal of this project is to investigate the multishot capacity of the armature technology developed at ISL. This technology is characterized by the use of multiple metal fiber brush armatures. The project bases on results mainly obtained with the railgun EMA3 at ISL (muzzle velocity v₀ les 2 km/s, applied energy per shot E_prim < 1MJ, 1 = 3 m, regular cal. = 15 mm x 30 mm). These results are characterized by good contact performance with respect to friction, rail erosion and contact transition in the range up to 2 km/s. The paper summarizes the main results in single shot mode and introduces preliminary experiments with respect to multishot applications. Subsequently technical aspects about loading and switching technologies for a multishot system are discussed and last but not least concrete design considerations for the medium caliber system RAFIRA are presented.