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ISSN Online: 2379-1748

ISBN Flash Drive: 978-1-56700-483-0

ISBN Online: 978-1-56700-482-3

4th Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference
April, 14–17, 2019 , Las Vegas, NV, USA

THERMAL MANAGEMENT OF A RAILGUN ARMATURE USING PHASE CHANGE MATERIALS

Get access (open in a dialog) pages 721-730
DOI: 10.1615/TFEC2019.emt.027555

要約

Railguns are a prime candidate in the effort to reduce the cost of sending payloads into orbit. Railguns and their projectile, the armature, experience high temperatures caused by the electrical current needed to accelerate the armature. The high temperature produced during the launch sequence is detrimental to both the payload’s integrity and the efficiency of the railgun. This study focuses on the effects of increasing the latent heat of an armature by using Phase Change Materials (PCM). The experiment uses hourglass shaped aluminum foil samples, along with a capacitor bank, to simulate the Ohmic heating in a railgun. An infrared camera measures the radiative emission of the samples during the electric pulse. The experiment compares the heat dissipation behavior of samples coated with lauric acid (test samples) to samples without PCM (control samples). This study shows the rate of heat dissipation from a lauric acid coating does not consistently prevent the aluminum from reaching the maximum temperature reached by the control samples. However, the lauric acid accelerates the cool-down time of the sample to 100°C by a factor of 12. The results indicate PCMs can be used to improve the efficiency of a railgun with a square wave electric pulse or a railgun which uses a succession of electric pulses. Latent heat dissipation allows the sample coated with PCM to endure two consecutive electric pulses separated by 0.04 s which would cause the fusion of the control sample.