Augmented railgun using a permanent magnet

The use of a permanent magnet instead of an electromagnet has been proposed for the augmentation of the magnetic field of a railgun driven by a current of approximately 20 kA. A permanent magnet has the following advantages in comparison with conventional augmentations using additional turns: (1) simple configuration of the system, (2) temporally and spatially constant magnetic fields, and (3) high efficiency. Here, the operation of a conventional railgun and that of an augmented railgun using a permanent magnet are compared experimentally, and the usefulness of the permanent magnet is described.