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Barrel wear reduction in rail guns: the effects of known and controlled rail spacing on low voltage electrical contact and the hard chrome plating of copper-tungsten rail and pure copper rails

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / 100 m/s). Low voltage electrical contact was not maintained for some experimental shots and non-parallel rails were the suspected cause. In this thesis, we used a non-contact capacitive sensor to determine rail spacing to within 2/kAcm10mael, so that the rails will be parallel within small tolerances. Several rails were used in these experiments: 75-25 copper-tungsten, chromium-plated 75-25 Cu-W, and chromium-plated pure copper rails. Improving the control of rail spacing and parallelity did not ensure low-voltage electrical contact for our configurations. The largest damage was observed for chromium-plated copper rails and the least damage occurred for chromium-plated 75-25 Cu-W rails. / Lieutenant, United States Navy

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:nps.edu/oai:calhoun.nps.edu:10945/949
Date06 1900
CreatorsMcNeal, Cedric J.
ContributorsMaier, William B., II, Harkins, Richard, Department of Physics
PublisherMonterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School
Source SetsNaval Postgraduate School
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Formatxiv, 49 p. : ill. (chiefly col.), application/pdf
RightsThis publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. As such, it is in the public domain, and under the provisions of Title 17, United States Code, Section 105, may not be copyrighted.

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