Numerical analysis of railgun muzzle flow field with multi-component plasma

Abstract

The railgun is a new concept launching weapon with high supersonic launching capability. Under the acceleration of Lorentz force produced by the discharge of strong pulse power source, the projectile leaves the muzzle in hypersonic speed. Due to the severe friction of armature in bore and the phenomenon of transition ablation, metal vapor is produced in the interior ballistic process and rush out of muzzle along with armature’s movement. Because of the open structure at both ends of the railgun, the pressure in the bore is much lower than the standard atmosphere, so there exists the phenomenon of muzzle gas backflow. In this paper, the coupled interface method and the multi-component plasma model are used to simulate the movement of metal vapor in the process of projectile moving out of the bore. The pressure boundary conditions and gas composition in the muzzle region of the simulation results are fitted and introduced into the MHD calculation model. The gas backflow phenomenon under the influence of multi-component gas and arc is further simulated. The results show that the muzzle arc improves the energy level of the muzzle flow field and promotes the gas backflow to a certain extent.