Dynamics of rails for electromagnetic railguns

Abstract

One of the important problems in developing the railgun is design of the rail and the related elements. The evaluation of the loads on rails is an important task. On operation, the armature runs at an acceleration. The acceleration load can cause more complicated dynamic responses of the railgun. Here, the dynamic equation of the rail for the railgun is given, and the equations for the forced responses of the rail under constant velocity load and the acceleration load are developed. Using these equations, the dynamic displacement responses of the rail to the running electromagnetic force for various accelerations are investigated. Theresultsshow that themaximumdynamic displacement peakoftherail anditspositiondepends ontheboundary conditions and the acceleration of the running armature. The larger is the acceleration, the more obvious is the increase of the dynamic displacements under condition that the armature velocity is above the critical velocity. For a given acceleration, the effects of the damping on the dynamic displacements of the rail become more obvious when the armature velocity grows. The results are useful for design and application of the railgun system.