A magnetic field constrained type of multi-barrel common-rail railgun

Abstract

Adopting the simultaneous launch mode of small and medium caliber railgun is an important means to increase the firepower density, improve the hit probability and strike efficiency. Based on this requirement, this paper creatively proposed a new multi-barrel simultaneous launch EM railgun, named magnetic field constrained type of multi-barrel common-rail railgun. The basic idea is to integrate multiple single-turn rail launchers with a specific structure into one launcher, and “merge” one rail of each single-turn rail launcher with a tight structure combination and arrange it in the center to form the “common rail” of multi-barrel launcher. The other rail of each rail launcher is evenly distributed around the “common rail” in the form of petals, forming the “outer rail” of each rail launcher. “Common rail” and all “outer rails” together form a multi-barrel rail launcher. With the increase of the number of barrels, the current of each barrel is superimposed many times in the common-rail, which greatly improves the magnetic induction intensity of the inner bore, thus improving the launching efficiency of the system. In order to overcome the problem of high magnetic induction intensity near the common-rail and low magnetic induction intensity near the external rail caused, a magnetic field constrained structure is added to the external rail to form a magnetic field constrained type of multi-barrel common-rail railgun. The basic structure of electromagnetic railgun with different number of barrels is simulated, and the spatial distribution characteristics of magnetic field are analyzed. Based on the magnetic field analysis, the interior ballistic simulation of the multi-barrel common-rail railgun is carried out, and the interior ballistic characteristics and launching efficiency of various numbers of barrels are analyzed. The simulation results show that the magnetic field constrained type of multi-barrel common-rail railgun can effectively improve the magnetic induction intensity near the external rail, improve the uniformity of the magnetic induction intensity distribution in the inner bore, and improve the inductance gradient, thus increasing the system efficiency. The structure of the multi-barrel common-rail railgun provides a new idea for the engineering application of the multi-barrel simultaneous launch mode.