LABORATORY TESTING OF THE PULSE POWER-SYSTEM FOR THE CANNON CALIBER ELECTROMAGNETIC GUN SYSTEM (CCEMG)

The team of (prime contractor) United Defense LP (UDLP) and The Univer sity of Texas at Austin Center for Electromechanics (UT-CEM) has compl eted a significant portion of the testing phase of a trailer mounted c ompulsator driven 35 mm (round bore equivalent) rapid fire railgun sys tem, The objective of the program is to develop a compact, lightweight pulse power test bed capable of launching 3, 5 round salves of 185-g integrated launch packages to 1.85 km/s at a firing rate of 5 Hz, Per contractual requirements, the pulse power system is also size compatib le with the Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV). The pulse power system i s developed around a second generation air-core, 4-pole rotating armat ure, self-excited, compulsator design, The 40 MJ at 12,000 rpm composi te rotor stores all 15 shots inertially and is capable of 2.5 GW perfo rmance into the 2.21 m long series augmented railgun. This paper descr ibes the CCEMG pulse power supply configuration and highlights importa nt features of the commissioning test plan, The paper then presents te st results from mechanical runs, stand alone compulsator (CPA) rectifi er tests, short circuit tests, and single shot live fire tests, Finall y, CPA performance is compared with predictions for the single shot te sts presented.