To the theory of parallel railgun driven by an inductive storage power supply

Abstract

Albeit far from maturity, inductive storage is a promising technology for electromagnetic launchers. A system comprising a railgun coupled to an inductive storage power supply is analyzed again in this paper. An analytical nondimensional treatment of the lossless case is given, readily allowing the assessment of the performance limits of such a system. A lossy system has been analyzed numerically. A conclusion is drawn that, at the discharge process, the coil losses are of minor importance compared to the rail losses.