Design and Experiment of Reluctance Electromagnetic Launcher With New-Style Armature

In order to analyze the launching efficiency and firing accuracy of the reluctance electromagnetic launcher (REML) with different armatures, the working principle of the REML was introduced in brief at first. The effect of different armature structures to launching efficiency and firing accuracy was analyzed in theory. After that, this paper demonstrated a five-stage REML and three kinds of armatures: cylindrical armature (CA), CA with notch (CAN), and CA with tail fin (CATF). The muzzle velocity and the circumradius of projectile impact position for different armatures were got by experiment with the five-stage REML. The experiment results show that the maxim launching efficiency is 2.87% for the CAN, and the minimum circumradius of projectile impact position is 68 mm for the CATF. It can draw the conclusions that the notch in the cross section of armature can weaken or even eliminate the formation of eddy current in the armature, which is beneficial to the improvement of the launching efficiency. It can improve the firing accuracy by furnishing a tail fin at the rear of the armature.