Prediction of Electromagnetic Launcher Behavior

One solution to the problems facing railgun technology is to use a lubricant injection system contained inside the armature to provide a conductive lubricant to the interface. Various different armature designs are currently under development. Each design must be analyzed through armature-rail interface modeling in order to predict the physical behavior and identify causes of transitions. A coupled multi-physical simulation is conducted on six different armature lubrication systems. The results of each simulation are compared to their corresponding test shot both for validation of the analysis and explanation of events in the experiment.