Abstract
In electromagnetic launch, the erosion phenomenon usually appears on the sides of the rail after repeated launches, and the erosion distribution corresponds with the tail edges of the armature. The erosion grooves are severe at the initial segment of the rail, and become shallow along the direction of the armature movement. The appearance of erosion will degrade the armature-rail contact performance, and at the same time the degradation of the armature-rail contact performance will aggravate the extent of the erosion. As a result, the performance and efficiency of the launch will be severely degraded. In this paper, the formation mechanism of erosion is discussed with simulations and experiments. The research shows that initial erosion is the result of the comprehensive effect of force and heat, Joule heat generated by large pulse current is the dominate factor. After the appearance of erosion grooves, gaps appear between the erosion grooves of rail and the tail of armature, which will lead to miniature arc when the large pulse current flows through the launch system. In repeated launches, the repeated action of current and arc makes the erosion grooves become deeper and wider.
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Cheng, W., Xu, W., Wang, Z., Yan, P. (2022). Research on the Formation of Erosion in Electromagnetic Launch. In: Liang, X., Li, Y., He, J., Yang, Q. (eds) The proceedings of the 16th Annual Conference of China Electrotechnical Society. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 890. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1870-4_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1870-4_7
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