Electromagnetic Compatibility and Current Pulse of Railgun

Abstract

Electromagnetic (EM) interference and its suppression are one of the major issues in most current systems design. The electric device such as railgun generates the EM fields that unintentionally propagate away from the structure. Railgun that have significant amounts of radiated emissions may interfere with the normal operation of other devices in close proximity. Also during the accelerating run of rail launchers, and particularly during the ignition of the armature, the radiated EM fields can compromise the life of electronic devices, can influence the signal to noise ratio, and can generate electrical shock hazard. The short duration pulse signal, such as current pulse of railgun, switching and arcing between components of railgun is typically rich in frequency spectral contents. It should be noted that the propulsive force of current pulse in each time push the armature in motion direction and change the propagation parameters of railgun as a time varying antenna and can affect on the radiation pattern in the various frequency ranges. Furthermore, in each component of current pulse, armature is in special position in direction of motion along the barrel and the impedance of railgun that power source see in front is different with previous stage and radiation pattern is different too. In this paper, the relationship between pulse form of input current and electric field around railgun are analyzed and simulated with finite-element method, then by attention of the armature position in each time it will be investigated the radiation pattern of railgun.