Travis Least

Graduation Semester and Year

2014

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering

Department

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor

David A Jr

Abstract

Over the past few decades, different branches of the US Department of Defense (DoD) have invested at improving the field ability of electromagnetic launchers. One such focus has been on achieving hypervelocity launch velocities in excess of 7 km/s for direct launch to space applications [1]. It has been shown that pre-injection is required for this to be achieved. One method of pre-injection which has promise involves using an electro-thermal (ET) due to its ability to achieve the desired velocities with a minimal amount of hot plasma injected into the launcher behind the projectile. Despite the demonstration of pre-injection using this method, polymer ablation is not very well known and this makes it challenging to predict how the system will behave for a given input of electrical power. In this work, the rate of ablation has been studied and predicted using different models to generate the best possible characteristic curve.

Disciplines

Electrical and Computer Engineering | Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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