A finite-element method for the prediction of joule heating of conductors in electromagnetic launchers

The authors describe a method based on a magnetic vector potential development for calculating the joule heating of the conductors in arbitrary launcher geometries. The method accounts for the effects of varying conductivity of the launcher's materials and can be implemented using available two-dimensional finite-element diffusion codes. Conductor temperature distributions as functions of time for a selected launcher geometry are provided to demonstrate the method.<
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