Design limitations for small caliber electromagnetic saboted rod projectiles

The criteria necessary for integrating a solid armature with a conventional n-type finned rod are described. An initial design is presented for a rod projectile launched from a 15.24 mm (.60-caliber) augmented railgun with a sinusoidal driving current. Other designs are assessed in order to explore improvements and scalability to other bore diameters. The final armature design is evaluated considering launch, flight, and terminal effects. Ohmic heating, structural limitations, and barrel parameters are also discussed. Flight and aerodynamic data are scaled from existing finned-rod projectile databases to calculate horizontal flat-trajectory performance. Finally, terminal effects are incorporated for a single rolled homogeneous armor (RHA) target