Simulating the Diffference between a DES and a Simple Railgun using SPICE

TL;DR

This paper compares a Distributed Energy Supply (DES) railgun with a simple railgun using NGSPICE simulations, demonstrating the efficiency benefits of DES and informing the design of a new railgun barrel.

Contribution

It provides a simulation-based comparison of DES and simple railguns, highlighting efficiency improvements and guiding design choices for high-energy systems.

Findings

DES railgun shows higher launch efficiency than simple railgun.

Simulation results informed the design of a new railgun barrel.

Performance metrics include velocity, power, and efficiency.

Abstract

A DES railgun increases the launch efficiency when compared to a simple railgun setup. In a NGSPICE-simulation a DES and a simple railgun setup connected to an existing 10-MJ capacitor based power supply are compared. Important parameters like velocity, power and efficiency are used to quantify the performance gain, when using the mechanically more complex DES setup. The results of this study were used to select the simple railgun setup as the design for a new barrel to the 10-MJ power supply.