Railgun

A railgun using cwas developed to launch hypervelocity projectiles. A 240 kJ, low inductance capacitor bank operating at 5 kV powered the railgun. Launchers and projectiles were designed and developed for this purpose. The currents producing the launch forces of the order of hundreds of kA. Even very low impedances for the current through the railgun circuit are substantial sources of energy losses. A simulation code was developed to optimise the performance of the railgun. Control and instrumentation facilities were set up along with a computer-based data acquisition system for measurement and analysis. The capacity to launch projectiles of 3-3.5 g weight to a velocity of more than 2.00 km/s was demonstrated