Electrothermal gun research in Europe. Summary of major activities and results obtained from German and France-German R&D programmes

Electrothermal Guns have been investigated in Germany since 1986 by Rheinmetall and TZN. Within a first technology programme small and medium calibre sized guns were designed and operated successfully. Muzzle velocities up to 2540 m/s were obtained from firing experiments with system efficiencies in the order of 12%. Since 1991 the investigations have been continued within a bilateral France-German technology programme on electric guns. Optimized designs led to an increase of the system efficiency of the ET-Gun technology to more than 20% at muzzle velocities above 2400 m/s. Based on all results obtained from medium calibre ET-Guns a 105 mm ET-Gun was designed and setup together with a capacitive 30 MJ pulsed power supply system. Within 22 shots up to full energy 1.9 kg sized projectiles were accelerated to up to 2400 m/s. The performance of the MT-technology could be demonstrated successfully in the large calibre size.