Skip to content

faameunier/coilgun

Repository files navigation

This is an ongoing research around coilguns. I provide a simple modelisation of the problem using only a few hypothesis:

  • Simple RLC circuit, (good enough for damped, SCR triggered coilguns, anyways it is probably hard to have an oscillating circuit in real life)
  • I neglect all Eddy currents (just use a laminated projectile, easy... no ?)
  • I suppose the quasi-steady state approximation true (this model is probably really wrong for high power coilguns)

Disclaimer

I decline all responsibilities in case of any accidents. If you are stupid enough to try and build a coilgun out of a random stranger repo on GitHub, it's on you. Plus, it is probably completely illegal where you live. Come on, I am not even a physicist.

Installation

To run this code you need to:

How to use

As this is a pure engineering research, the code is not really user-friendly.

You should define the coilgun setups you want to try in datastore.py via the populate_something functions. All dimensions are in millimeters, electric tension is in Volt, capacity in Farad, resistance in Ohm.

Then you can just use main.py to (in this order):

  • Compute some coils data (build_some_coils)
  • Compute some optimal launch position for a given electrical setup (build_some_solutions)
  • Plot the 3D surface determined by the optimal launch position and have a look at the best coil given a fixed projectile and electrical setup.
  • You can then check the impact of a varying magnetic susceptibility if need be.

Please note that running this code can take several days if you want to try a lot of setups on a normal computer.

Motivation

The mathemical model developped was presented to a jury for the entrance examination for the best French Engineering Schools and was awarded the best possible grade. The code was originally in Lua and Maple. However, a FEMM-Python connector was recently created and I therefore decided to give this project a second chance. The associated paper might be published one day.

About

A complete coilgun model and simulation

Topics

Resources

License

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Releases

No releases published

Packages

No packages published

Languages