Overview of the electric launch technology program in China

Since the 9th EML technology symposium, the electric launch technology program in China has been focused on the two aspects: basic and key issues in military applications of the EML technology and civilian applications of the EML technology. The first aspect involves the investigations of the erosion of the rail electrodes at the breech, the velocity skin effort, triggered vacuum switches, the influence of electrical energy input on the combustion behavior of propellant, the best wave form of the pulsed power supply for the ETC launcher and the mathematical model and a computer simulation code of the reusable linear magnetic flux compressor for electric launchers applications. The second aspect involves the investigations of the linear electromagnetic pumping unit, which is being developed based on the EML technology and experiments were conducted to test and verify the performance of the prototype model.