Simulating the Diffference between a DES and a Simple Railgun using SPICE

Abstract

A DES railgun increases the launch efficiency when compared to a simple railgun setup. In a NGSPICE-simulation a DES and a simple railgun setup connected to an existing 10-MJ capacitor based power supply are compared. Important parameters like velocity, power and efficiency are used to quantify the performance gain, when using the mechanically more complex DES setup. The results of this study were used to select the simple railgun setup as the design for a new barrel to the 10-MJ power supply.