Publications Details

The continuing challenge of electromagnetic launch

Cowan, M.; Cnare, E.C.; Duggin, B.W.; Kaye, R.J.; Marder, B.M.; Shokair, I.R.

Interest in launching payloads through the atmosphere to ever higher velocity is robust. For hundreds of years, guns and rockets have been improved for this purpose until they are now considered to be near to their performance limits. While the potential of electromagnetic technology to increase launch velocity has been known since late in the nineteenth century, it was not until about 1980 that a sustained and large-scale effort was started to exploit it. Electromagnetic launcher technology is restricted here to mean only that technology which establishes both a current density, J, and a magnetic field, B, within a part of the launch package, called the armature, so that J {times} B integrated over the volume of the armature is the launching force. Research and development activity was triggered by the discovery that high velocity can be produced with a simple railgun which uses an arc for its armature. This so called ``plasma-armature railgun`` has been the launcher technology upon which nearly all of the work has focused. Still, a relatively small parallel effort has also been made to explore the potential of electromagnetic launchers which do not use sliding contacts on stationary rails to establish current in the armature. One electromagnetic launcher of this type is called an induction coilgun because armature current is established by electromagnetic induction. In this paper, we first establish terminology which we will use not only to specify requirements for successful endoatmospheric launch but also to compare different launcher types. Then, we summarize the statuses of the railgun and induction coilgun technologies and discuss the issues which must be resolved before either of these launchers can offer substantial advantage for endoatomospheric launch.