Abstract
As power supplies, compulsators are popular choices for high-end railgun power supplies. In order to increase power and energy density, air-core compulsators are proposed by using composite materials instead of traditional iron-core compulsators. Due to the absence of ferromagnetic material, the flux density in the air-core compulsator can reach to 4–6 T instantaneously, which is much higher than the saturation field strength in traditional iron-core machines. Therefore, self-excitation topology is essential for the air-core compulsator to obtain up to 100-kA field current. This paper carried out research on the key parameters of self-excitation efficiency first, and then focus on the large magnetic energy remained in the inductive field winding after one shot, an implementation scheme and control strategy of energy recovery of air-core compulsator was proposed and analyzed. By controlling the field rectifier working at active inverter state after one discharge process, the magnetic energy stored in the field winding can be converted to rotor kinetic energy again. The simulation results indicate that the energy recovery efficiency can reach to 70% for a reference air-core compulsator. The continuous discharge number of times increased from 3 to 4 during one kinetic energy charging, which means that the delivered energy density increases 33.3%.
Highlights
INTRODUCTIONC OMPENSATED pulsed alternators (compulsators) can quickly convert rotational kinetic energy to high current electrical energy with very high energy density and flexible output pulse shape, which have been considered as popular choices for various high-power applications, such as electromagnetic railguns, electrothermal chemical guns, and electromagnetic coilguns [1]
C OMPENSATED pulsed alternators can quickly convert rotational kinetic energy to high current electrical energy with very high energy density and flexible output pulse shape, which have been considered as popular choices for various high-power applications, such as electromagnetic railguns, electrothermal chemical guns, and electromagnetic coilguns [1].Manuscript received January 9, 2017; revised April 24, 2017; accepted April 25, 2017
The magnetic energy stored in the field winding can be converted to rotor kinetic energy again after one discharge process, leading a higher delivered energy density (DED) of the electromagnetic launch system
Summary
C OMPENSATED pulsed alternators (compulsators) can quickly convert rotational kinetic energy to high current electrical energy with very high energy density and flexible output pulse shape, which have been considered as popular choices for various high-power applications, such as electromagnetic railguns, electrothermal chemical guns, and electromagnetic coilguns [1]. After nearly 40 years continuous research, several key technologies have been adopted into compulsators, such as the air-core machine, self-excitation, multiphase configuration, rotating field, hollow rotor structure, no compensation (d-axis compensation), instead of the original design of iron core, separate excitation, single-phase, rotating armature, solid rotor, and passive compensation. Both the theoretical research and engineering technology have been developed markedly. The magnetic energy stored in the field winding can be converted to rotor kinetic energy again after one discharge process, leading a higher delivered energy density (DED) of the electromagnetic launch system
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