Reverse Force Suppression Method of Reluctance Coil Launcher Based on Consumption Resistor

When armature passes through the central plane of a driving coil in the process of reluctance coil launching, the magnetic force will reverse and slow down the armature speed. To overcome this problem, the principle of reluctance coil launcher is analyzed. Meanwhile, this paper establishes a finite element analysis model to calculate the electromagnetic force, velocity, displacement and other parameters of the armature while the reluctance coil launcher works. Based on the simulation results, dynamic characteristics of the reluctance coil launcher are summarized and two methods for reverse force suppression are discussed. Furthermore, an experiment system is established and some experiments are carried out. This research concludes that resistor consumption method can effectively restrain the generation of reverse force, with no obvious bad impact on other performance, which provides a practical approach to achieving higher speed and efficiency for reluctance electromagnetic launcher.