IMPROVEMENT OF RAILGUN PROJECTILE USING HIGHER SPECIFIC WEIGHT MATERIAL

A projectile using a metal powder buried in a polycarbonate one is use d so that we can perform an impact experiment between materials of hig her specific mass such as metal and metal. The projectile could be acc elerated above 6 km/sec and it was confirmed that the powder stayed in the original configuration in tile polycarbonate base without any def ormation during flight. To prove the effectiveness, impact experiments were perfromed in which the total weight and the diameter of projecti le with and without the metal powder are fixed for comparison. Using 2 .5 cm thick stainless steel as a target the produced craters are compa red. The crater made by the projectile with palladium (Pd) power is mu ch deeper than the one with the simple polycarbonate projectile. Moreo ver, a two stage crater structure is obtained which implies that highe r pressure and higher temperature impact has been realized.