Research On A Rail-type Electromagnetic Launch System With A Superconducting Pulsed Power Supply

The transient electromagnetic field analysis of rail-type electromagnetic launchers involves motion effects and currents flowing from a stationary conductor to a moving one. Commercial finite element analysis software packages are not capable of analyzing such situations. They can only analyze the situation where the armature in the launcher is locked, and transient currents are injected into the launcher. Superconducting pulsed power supplies are theoretically capable of delivering high currents, and possibly suitable for the application of rail-type electromagnetic launchers.We carried out static electromagnetic finite element analysis on a rail-type electromagnetic launcher using both ANSYS Maxwell and ANSYS Emag, obtained the distribution of magnetic field and current, and established a static circuit model. We carried out transient electromagnetic finite element analysis using the same software packages for the situation where the armature is locked and transient currents are injected into the launcher to study the skin effects in the launcher. Analysis shows that under certain circumstances, the static circuit model can be used to predict transient simulation results.This paper introduces an analytical-numerical method to calculate the mutual inductance of coaxial circular coils with rectangular cross section. The method is fast, accurate, and easy to use. The method can be used to find out the inductance of a superconducting pulsed power supply. This paper presents a simple method to calculate the resistance of the inductive secondary winding of the inductive superconducting pulsed power supply. According the inductance and resistance, a circuit model of the inductive pulsed power supply can be established.Knowing the circuit models of the rail-type electromagnetic launcher and the inductive superconducting pulsed power supply, we used MATLAB Simulink to analyze the dynamic process of the launcher with the supply. Analysis shows that the voltage drops between the rails and the armature are the main factors that affect the application of and the inductive superconducting pulsed power supply in the rail-type electromagnetic launcher. When the voltage drops are low, the power supply can effectively drive the launcher.