Overlapped Electromagnetic Coilgun for Low Speed Projectiles

Abstract

This paper presents a new overlapped coilgun configuration to launch medium weight projectiles. The proposed configuration consists of a two-stage coilgun with overlapped coil covers with spacing between them. The theoretical operation of a multi-stage coilgun is introduced, and a transient simulation was conducted for projectile motion through the launcher by using a commercial transient finite element software, ANSOFT MAXWELL. The excitation circuit design for each coilgun is reported, and the results indicate that the overlapped configuration increased the exit velocity relative to a non-overlapped configuration. Different configurations in terms of the optimum length and switching time were attempted for the proposed structure, and all of these cases exhibited an increase in the exit velocity. The exit velocity tends to increase by 27.2% relative to that of a non-overlapped coilgun of the same length.