Problem of Materials for Railguns

This paper is concerned with analyzing the ultimate velocity versus projectile mass at fixed acceleration distance for various methods of decreasing the current density at the rail-armature interface. The analysis is performed by numerical solution of the system of equations of unsteady magnetic-field diffusion and unsteady heat transfer in a two dimensional formulation. Homogeneous and multilayer projectiles and homogeneous rails and rails with a resistive coating are considered. It is shown that the ultimate kinematic characteristic of railgun accelerators of solids can be considerably increased by changing the structure and thermal properties of the projectile and electrode materials.