Investigations on the frictional behavior of electromagnetic Railgun armatures

The starting and the dynamic behavior of a projectile in a Railgun is, amongst other things, greatly influenced by the friction forces acting at the rail/projectile interface. Therefore it is of great interest to measure and to quantify these friction forces in order to understand the different mechanisms contributing during the acceleration process. For this reason we developed a measuring set-up which enabled us to measure the static friction coefficient of a brush and a C-shaped armature on copper rails. Furthermore the set-up enabled us to measure a friction coefficient between the rail and brush armature in case of a current flow through the rails and the armature.