Further investigations of plasma armature performance in the Culham Laboratory HTF rail launcher

The results from an experimental investigation of plasma armature behavior in the Culham Laboratory HTF (hypervelocity test facility) rail launcher are presented. The object of this work was to gain further insight into the conditions which lead to the formation of secondary plasma arcs in the rail launcher. The railgun was operated with a 1-cm square bore formed from glass-reinforced epoxy insulators and either stainless steel or copper rails. Experimental results were obtained with projectile muzzle velocities ranging from 1.5 km/s to 3.0 km/s; two free arc shots also occurred during the test series. The results show that the launcher performed much better with copper rails than with stainless steel rails. The results also show that the glass epoxy insulators performed much better than the acetyl copolymer material previously used in the HTF.<>