Resonant Behavior of an Augmented Railgun

Abstract

We consider a lumped circuit model of an augmented electromagnetic railgun that consists of a gun circuit and an augmentation circuit that is inductively coupled to the gun circuit. The gun circuit is driven by a d.c. voltage generator, and the augmentation circuit is driven by an a.c. voltage generator. Using sample parameters, we numerically solve the three non-linear dynamical equations that describe this system. We find that there is a resonant behavior in the armature kinetic energy as a function of the frequency of the voltage generator in the augmentation circuit. This resonant behavior may be exploited to increase armature kinetic energy. Alternatively, if the presence of the kinetic energy resonance is not taken into account, parameters may be chosen that result in less than optimal kinetic energy and efficiency.