A maintainable large bore, high performance railgun barrel

This paper reviews the design features and performance characteristics for a large bore (90 mm) barrel system fabricated for the Defence Research Agency (DRA) to operate at the Kirkcudbright Electromagnetic Launch Facility. This 90 mm barrel was designed for testing developmental launch package designs. The barrel design permits the rapid refurbishment of bore insulators and rails that are commonly damaged by launch package failures during development testing. The barrel system is designed for operation with both plasma and metal armatures up to peak current levels of 3.5 MA. The results of initial performance testing including inductance gradient and bore deflection are presented.<
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