Investigations on Taper Angle Variation and Its Effects on Electromagnetic Railgun Parameters

One technique to enhance the inductance gradient of an electromagnetic railgun (EMRG) is to narrow the rails toward the muzzle end. The narrowing of rails along their length is called tapering. This article introduces the concept of taper angle and investigates the effect of taper angle on the rails by keeping the sliding contact intact. The effects of taper angle to rails on projectile's kinetic energy (KE), current density distribution, and railgun's barrel efficiency are the subject of this research. Rails with different taper angles are compared with traditional cuboid shape rails in terms of performance. By modeling the designed railgun geometries in LS-DYNA, dynamic field distributions are studied. From a quantitative perspective, the muzzle velocity of the projectile has risen by 12% for a taper angle variation from 0 ^ to 2. 4 ^. The improvements in muzzle velocity are attributed to an increase in the inductance gradient of the railguns with taper angle. An increase in resistance gradient is observed because of the change in cross-sectional areas. The equivalent resistance gradients are determined to deduce the efficiency of the barrel for the railgun designs under analysis.