Operation of a 2.4-MJ pulsed power system for railgun

Abstract

Summary form only given. A 2.4 MJ capacitive pulsed power system (PPS) for a railgun was fabricated, installed, and tested. It consists of four independent 600 kJ segments and each segment contains six 100 kJ capacitor bank modules, a capacitor charger, and a charge and dump circuit. The unit module which is composed of a metalized film capacitor, semiconductor switches, and a inductor was designed for safe operation within 10 kV and 75 kA. All modules in a segment are charged with a same voltage and a trigger time of each module is controllable. Using the 2.4 MJ PPS, the discharge experiment with breech short condition and the launch experiment with the 6 m railgun were conducted. Based on the result, we modified the electrical circuit parameters of the PPS and the railgun which had been estimated in the initial design stage. The circuit simulation with the modified parameters matches well with experiment data.