Observation and simulation of solid-armature railgun performance

A model previously developed to investigate current and heat transport in s olid-armature railguns is extended. The model is two dimensional and invlov es the solution of coupled Maxwell and heat transport equations in both the armature and rails. The principal extensions include the development of a transformation that maps an armature of fairly arbitrary shape in a rectang ular computational region, and the inclusion of melting within the appropri ate governing equations. The model is applied to analyze an armature under recent experimental study. Temperature and induction-field profiles are cal culated as functions of both space and time. Recent experimental data, indi cative of the performance of the armature, are also presented and correlate d where possible with results of the calculations.