Study of Some Influencing Factors of Armature Current Distribution at Current Ramp-Up Stage in Railgun

Current ramp-up is an important stage for a railgun electromagnetic launch system. In lots of launching experiments, a big chunk of deposit aluminum can be found on the rail surface at the start-up position of the armature-rail contact area, sometimes, erosion is even emerged. The transition at current ramp-up is mainly related to local degradation of armature. The larger value of maximum current densities at the rail/armature (A/R) interface would lead to armature local temperature increasing rapidly, which deteriorates the material property of armature, degrades the static electrical contact performance, and reduces the railgun lifetime significantly. In this paper, for restraining start-up transition, several influencing factors of armature degradation and melt are studied based on current concentration. Rail resistivity, rail dimensions, armature resistivity, and the shape of current supply are considered and simulated. At current startup, skin effect and induced current are analyzed, which are considered as the direct factors of armature's current distribution. Armature current distribution and the maximum current density are obtained and compared for each factor. Finally, launching experiments are carried out as the same condition with simulation. On the rail surface at the start-up position of the A/R interface, the depositions reflect the current distribution on armature with different factors influence at the current ramp-up. The results of experiments are in reasonable agreement with simulation description.