Ablation and geometry change study of solid armature in a railgun

Abstract

Armature plays an important role in the electromagnetic launch process. Due to the skin effect, the current density distribution is neither uniform on the rail, nor on the armature. High current density centralization in one part could lead to a partial high temperature and make the armature material melt down and be ablated, especially at low velocity. In this paper we try to change the geometry of a Cshaped armature to improve the current density distribution and reduce the ablation. Four variants of C-shaped armatures are designed to study the specific features, including a conventional C-shaped armature (CCA), a rounded leading edge C-shaped armature (LCA), a rounded trailing edge C-shaped armature (TCA), and a rounded incorporate edge C-shaped armature (ICA). A novel low-speed experiment is constructed and tested. The armatures are ablated and recovered to compare the improved effects. Then finite element simulations according to the experimental results are performed to further analyze the experimental results. It is proved that the current density and hence the temperature distribution can be immensely improved by simply changing the armature geometry. LCA and ICA show that the erosion is more uniform on the contact surface due to the rounded leading edge. The curved trailing edge could improve the uniformity of the current on the interface. ICA which combines the effects of LCA and TCA is the best option in the four armatures. How much the leading edge and the trailing edge should be curved involves the geometry of CCA and the posture of the interface on the rail. A saddle shape is a good option to improve the current density and temperature distribution in the throat. Erosion mechanism is analyzed finally. The experiments and simulations support the erosion and transition mechanism. A detailed description of the experiments and simulations is also presented in this paper.