Experiment and Analysis on the New Structure of the Coilgun With Stepped Coil Winding

In this paper, a new structure of coilgun with stepped coil winding was designed. The performance of this structure was investigated and compared to the conventional coilgun with uniform diameter stator coil (UDSC) winding. It can be seen from the results that the trigger position of this new structure moves forward with respect to the conventional coilgun. In order to compare the results, the inductance of the two coils is set to the same. If the initial voltage of the capacitor is lower, as the armature at the optimum trigger position, the muzzle velocity of armature in the conventional UDSC coilgun is relatively larger. Conversely, if the initial voltage of the capacitor is higher, the muzzle velocity of armature in the new structure coilgun is relatively larger. According to the simulation results with the increase of voltage, the difference is more and more obvious. Through the single-stage preliminary experiment in our laboratory, the results were in good agreement with the simulation results. And the trigger position is more forward, so the interaction time between the armature and the coil will be longer. Besides, the coil with stepped structure will increase the efficiency of the coilgun when the voltage level is higher.