Behavior of azimuthal currents induced in the projectile of the linear induction launcher (LIL)

The performance of a two-section three-phase capacitor-driven LIL is analyzed by means of a computer simulation code which is based on the transient behavior of a lumped circuit model representing the gun. Initially, to design this launcher, to select dimensions, and to do preliminary calculations of performance, simple steady-state sinusoidal operation was assumed. However, when the dimensions were entered into the code, the code-predicted performance differed from the results obtained using the simplistic model. The reasons for most of the departures from the sinusoidal steady-state can be understood by taking into account four hurdles that prevent its attainment: single phasing; frequency mixing; damping; and sectionalization