Benchmarking the filamentary model for an industrial electromagnetic accelerator

This work is part of a program aiming to develop an electromagnetic accelerator to be implemented in industry as a second stage of acceleration for a standard pneumatic press. A scaled-down version of the future electromagnetic accelerator was built and tested using various diagnostic tools to provide very accurate data. The system uses a 0.7-kJ capacitor bank to accelerate a copper projectile weighing 0.7 kg to about 3.5 m/s at 5-mm distance from a driving coil. A detailed filamentary model of the electromagnetic accelerator is used to predict all the accelerator characteristics including, but not limited to the time history of the projectile velocity, the temperature of both the driving coil winding and the projectile and the forces acting on conductors. Using accurate data from testing allows benchmarking the filamentary model, which is then used to design the full-scale accelerator, capable of accelerating a payload of 100 kg to 3 m/s.