A Review on Life Prediction Methods of Gun Barrel

Abstract

In large caliber gun system, the high speed, high temperature and high pressure gas produced by propellant combustion will cause serious erosion damage to the inner wall of barrel, which will lead to continuous decline of gun performance and termination of the maximum life of barrel. The theories and methods of gun barrel life prediction mainly involve thermodynamics, chemistry, material and machinery science and so on. This paper mainly introduces the main mechanism of gun erosion and the calculation model of gun erosion which involves the numerical solution in internal ballistic combustion process, the heat transfer and erosion calculation of gun barrel. In view of the accurate calculation of parameters such as the temperature of gunpowder gas can more accurately reflect the erosion of inner wall of gun barrel, this paper summarizes the calculation methods of the temperature, thermal physical property parameters and convective heat transfer coefficient of high temperature and high pressure gas in gun barrel. In order to determine the erosion wear quantity and study the effect of heat input on the erosion process of inner wall of gun, erosion experiments are usually required. At present, the common erosion experiments mainly include the measurement of erosion quantity with semi-closed explosive device and the change of surface characteristics of gun steel target with laser pulse heating. By analyzing the criterion of barrel life, the establishment method of barrel life prediction model is studied deeply, and the main barrel life prediction model is introduced, which is convenient to guide engineering application.