Pulse Power Modeling and Analysis For Electromagnetic Accelerator Design

Abstract

This paper models a pulse forming network consisting of series of high voltageenergy storage capacitors and inductors. These accumulate electrical energy over acomparatively long time, and then release the stored energy in the form of a relatively squarepulse of comparatively short duration for pulsed power application. As railguns move frombasic research of the electromagnetic acceleration technology to the development of systemsfor specific applications, a wide variety of power supply and railgun systems is beinginvestigated. The problem with most of the research work on improvement of railgun systemfor efficient acceleration of masses to impressive velocities centers on how to provide theprimary energy store, and how to make the armature current more nearly constant with timeduring the entire shot period. This has not been solved till date. This paper provides asimplified and enhanced model for pulse power storage and transfer. The model is made up of30 capacitors arranged into 6 sub- banks. Each of the sub-banks has five capacitors of thesame ratings connected in series for voltage maximization. The capacitor banks are linked inparallel with an inductor connected across the sub-banks. Each section of the bank is charged2000V. The resulting pulse power discharge is a square wave with 258μs pulse duration andthe 2000V initial condition results in a 1000V, 20000A (20kA) square pulse into the 49mΩload resistor that represents the power device. The transferred energy of the network is 5.2kJand the pulse power delivered by the model is 20MW.