Effect of conducting containment on electromagnetic launcher efficiency

Electromagnetic launcher, also called railgun, is a projectile accelerator which uses the electromagnetic force. Existence of solid metal containment around the rails of electromagnetic launchers, which increases the mechanical durability, affects the electromagnetic force on armature and rails. In this study, the effect of distance between non-laminated conducting containment and rails, and the effect of the lamination thickness on the efficiency of railgun are investigated. Also, the effect of magnetic and electrical material properties of the containment on the core loss is observed. Direction and magnitude of induced eddy current in the metal containment is analyzed by the aid of Finite Element Method (FEM) software COMSOL.