Superconducting Augmented Rail Gun (SARG)
Abstract
Both the energy efficiency and projectile velocity of a rail gun system can be substantially increased by the addition of an adjunct superconducting augmentation coil system. The energy efficiency results from the superconducting coil's ability to recover the rail magnetic field energy normally dissipated at the end of launch in rail guns, by means of a unique application of the flux conservation of property of superconducting coils. The increased velocity results from the augmented Lorentz force due to the augmentation coil magnetic field. In an idealized system, both the energy efficiency and projectile velocities can be increased by more than 80 percent, dependent on the magnetic coupling between the rail and augmentation coils. The theoretical evaluation has been extended to include dissipative effects which reveal that actual launch efficiencies are increased from 25 percent (rail gun) to over 50 percent (SARG). A theoretical analysis of SARG is presented here together with the progress of an experimental demonstrator developer at Benet Weapons Lab.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA179269
Entities
People
- Clarke G. Homan
- Wilfred Scholz
Organizations
- United States Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center