PROJECT TITLE :

Using the SR3–60 Railgun in Augmented Mode

ABSTRACT:

Augmentation could be a well-known technique to extend the velocity of railgun projectiles, whereas at the same time keeping the driving currents down. At the French-German Analysis Institute of Saint-Louis (ISL), several experiments using augmented railguns were performed. Here we report on a study using the SR3–60 as a augmented railgun. The SR3–60 may be a two-m-long railgun composed of three identical pairs of rails that are rotated by an angle of sixty° with respect to each other. This railgun offers flexibility in use. In earlier experiments, it was used to accelerate one projectile employing a serial or overlapping configuration of the rail pairs, to enable a fire rate of 400 Hz, or to accelerate a strongly segmented projectile. During this paper, a brush armature projectile with a twenty-g payload is accelerated using one combine, whereas the other 2 pairs are connected in series to augment the magnetic field inside the railgun. A series of shots with and while not augmentation is performed and discussed.