Design and Electromagnetic Analysis of a Three Stage Induction Coil-gun System Utilizing the Finite Element Method

This paper deals with the electromagnetic design and analysis of a three-stage induction coil-gun system. First, the operating principles of a multistage coil-gun system are briefly introduced and, in the following, in order to analyze and calculate the voltage, current, force, speed and acceleration, a transient finite-element simulation of the projectile motion is performed utilizing the ANSYS Maxwell software. Furthermore, to validate the design accuracy of the electromagnetic launcher, using its state space equations, simulations are performed in the MATLAB software and the analytical results are compared with the results obtained from electromagnetic analysis. The designed system has an efficiency of about 31% and it is capable of launching a projectile of 21.6 kg at an output speed of 109 m/s. The design features and the results of the analysis can be effectively utilized to develop a large-scale multistage induction-type coil-gun system.