Abstract
Numerical simulations of the electrothermal acceleration process have been carried out in order to assess the potential of different working media. For some interesting substances, the mass/energy ratio and the total dissipated energy are varied in the computations. A comparison to conventional powder guns is made for a small calibre (bore diameter=20 mm) weapon. Using SESAME equations of state, good efficiency is predicted for hydrogen, helium and polyethylene and medium efficiency for lithium vapor. For muzzle velocities around 1500 m/s, ET guns show similar characteristics as chemical guns. Approaching 2500 m/s, the maximum gas pressure in the ET gun is decisively smaller. With a tolerable pressure of 500 MPa, the hydrogen gun can accelerate a mass of 100 g to nearly 2000 m/s in a barrel length of 2.25 m (2300 m/s in 4.25 m).< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>
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