A coaxial railgun as a prototype of a new generation railgun

An increase of the transition velocity magnitude is an indispensable condition of the problem decision of the metal bodies nonarc acceleration up to high velocities. Earlier, it was shown that in a traditional railgun the transition velocity may be increased by approximately three times by using rails with a graphite layer or by using muzzle feed railguns. But the most prospective manner is the rise of the transition velocity by increasing the magnitude of the railgun geometrical parameter. In this paper we show that a solution of this problem is possible only by designing a new railgun. The railgun with coaxial placement of rails is the most simple type of such railgun. Its experimental research has been carried out. A projectile with a mass of 2.4 g has been accelerated in a nonarc regime up to a velocity of 1600 m/s that exceeds by approximately two times the transition velocity in a traditional railgun in accelerating bodies of the same mass.