Solid armature performance with resistive rails (railguns)

The velocity skin effect and limits which it sets to projectile velocities in solid armature railguns have been considered previously. However, the most effective type of rail design has not been analyzed in a consistent and systematic manner. The author performs such an analysis and substantiates the advantage of the use of highly resistive layers on the contact surfaces of rails. Such layers virtually neutralize the velocity skin effect and its detrimental consequences. The thermal and electrodynamical problems are solved for several combinations of rails and armatures to compare this method with other possibilities. The results show that using rails with highly resistive layers in combination with solid conductive armatures permits reaching velocities far in excess of 10 km/s in the conventional electromechanical regime of acceleration, without overheating armatures and rails. Recommendations are presented for the choice of parameters of such layers.<>