Survey and Projected Performance of Pulsed Power Supplies at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD

摘要

Electric guns require energy produced by a pulsed electrical discharge to accelerate the launch package. A number of research projects that utilize pulsed high-power sources are on-going at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), MD. Demonstrations of electric gun technology thus far utilized rotating machinery or capacitor based pulsed power supplies (PPS's). A survey of PPS's at APG was conducted. While a majority of the PPS's is not directly compatible with a railgun load they can be modified an combined into a multiple, trailer-based PPS. In order to obtain 20 MJ of muzzle kinetic energy a railgun launcher with greater than 50% system efficiency will require a 40 MI PPS. However, a substantial investment in technology, as opposed to hardware, results in better utilization of a lower energy, site-based PPS. More modest muzzle energy requirements (8-11 MJ) can be satisfied with either a site- or trailer-based 32 MI PPS and a launcher efficiency of 56%. Additionally, the site- or trailer-based PPS can easily supply a few megajoules to an electrothermal-chemical (ETC) capillary also.