Investigation of the Inner Conical Armature in Synchronous Induction Coilgun

Synchronous induction coilgun (SICG) has attracted more and more attention due to its advantages of simple manufacturing and no physical contact between armature and barrel. The armature, as an important component of SICG, will directly affect the launch speed and energy conversion efficiency. According to the distribution characteristics of eddy current and electromagnetic force, a new structural armature is proposed in this paper. The proposed inner conical armature is characterized by the maximum thickness at the tail end and the minimum thickness at the front end, with a gradual decrease in the thickness along the axial direction. The simulation results reveal that the proposed armature not only increases the mutual inductance between the armature and the drive coil but also enhances the electromagnetic force and weakens the armature capture effect. The experimental results verify that, compared with a traditional armature weighing 56.5 g, the new structure armature weighing 58.0 g enables higher muzzle velocities using the same set of pulsed power supply and drive coil, providing higher efficiency.