Development of an accelerating piston implosion-driven launcher

18th APS-SCCM; 24th AIRAPT

Huneault, J.^1 ; Loiseau, J.^1 ; Higgins, A.J.^1

McGill University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Montrai

QC

H3A 2K6, Canada^1

关键词: Detonation velocity;    Equation of state;    Experimental development;    Gas compression;    Launch technology;    Operating ranges;    Scientific fields;    Shock compressed gas;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/500/14/142019/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1742-6596/500/14/142019

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

The ability to soft-launch projectiles to velocities exceeding 10 km/s is of interest for a number of scientific fields, including orbital debris impact testing and equation of state research. Current soft-launch technologies have reached a performance plateau below this operating range. In the implosion-driven launcher (ILD) concept, explosives are used to dynamically compress a light driver gas to significantly higher pressures and temperatures than the propellant of conventional light-gas guns. The propellant of the IDL is compressed through the linear implosion of a pressurized tube. The imploding tube behaves like a piston which travels into the light gas at the explosive detonation velocity, thus forming an increasingly long column of shock-compressed gas which can be used to propel a projectile. The McGill designed IDL has demonstrated the ability to launch a 0.1-g projectile to 9.1 km/s. This work will focus on the implementation of a novel launch cycle in which the explosively driven piston is accelerated in order to gradually increase driver gas compression, thus maintaining a relatively constant projectile driving pressure. The theoretical potential of the concept as well as the experimental development of an accelerating piston driver will be examined.