Theoretical-experimental study of the interior ballistics of an electrothermal launcher of macrbodies

A mathematical model for the interior ballistics of an electrothermal launcher of macrobodies has been developed which can be used to predict the projectile velocity for specified values of the mass and size of the impactor, the electrodynamic parameters of the capacitive energy storage, and launcher parameters. The problem of determining the projectile velocity was solved in a hydrodynamic formulation by numerical integration of the equations of motion, the energy conservation equation, and the caloric equation of state. It is shown that without accounting for the dynamically changing friction coefficient and erosion of the electrodes, the calculation results differ considerably from the experimental data, but the model qualitatively describes the physical processes of interior ballistics of the electrothermal launcher.