Railgun With Steel Barrel Sections and Thermal Management System

By electrically isolating sections from the breech to the muzzle of a specially designed metal gun barrel (steel), the boundary conditions used in the 1984 paper by Kerrisk are changed. The result allows a metal gun barrel to be located close to the current-carrying rails while still maintaining high inductance per unit length (
L
'). Descriptions of two designs of two-rail open air railguns that use this result for an efficient gun are presented. Each current-carrying rail is supported by its own steel barrel section. For each case, a thermal management system is included. The open gun bore is directly exposed to the atmosphere or a gas ambient if a dielectric enclosure is used, along the gun's entire length.