Distributed energy store railguns using solid state closing switches

Requirements for higher energy storage and transfer to kinetic energy for future railguns and other pulsed electric systems will require compact discharge switches and control circuitry. Currently there are no compact, high energy semiconductor based on/off discharge circuits for distributed energy store railguns that can be controlled and fired a few times a second. Some work has been done with silicon controlled rectifier closing switches for single and multi-shot railgun experiments. This dissertation work describes a simulation and design package for a distributed energy store railgun. We have used this work to simulate the transfer of stored electrical energy to a railgun launch package and produced the solid state device closing switch configuration required by each energy stage of the system.