ULTRALIGHT WEIGHT HYPERVELOCITY PROJECTILE DEMONSTRATION

DEMONSTRATION OF 10 KM/SEC LAUNCH VELOCITIES WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT ACHIEVEMENT IN THE CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT OF EM GUNS FOR STRATEGIC APPLICATIONS. NEW EM GUNS, PARTICULARLY THUNDERBOLT, WILL SOON BEGIN EXPERIMENTS TO DETERMINE IF THERE IS A REAL BARRIER AT 6-7 KM/SEC WHICH MIGHT BE OVERCOME BY MITIGATING RESTRIKE, BY CONFINING THE PLASMA ARMATURE, OR REDUCING PLASMA FRICTION FORCES ON THE RAIL. BEFORE THESE EXPERIMENTS CAN BE CONDUCTED, A LIGHTWEIGHT PROJECTILE CONCEPT MUST BE DEVELOPED WHICH CAN SURVIVE THE 200-1000 KGEE LAUNCH ACCELERATIONS AND OTHER EQUALLY SEVERE LOADS AND BE SUFFICIENTLY LIGHT TO ACHIEVE 10 KM/SEC. THIS PROGRAM WILL EXAMINE ALTERNATIVE PROJECTILE CONCEPTS (E.G., BASE PUSHING OR PULLING, SOLID OR PLASMA ARMATURE, PLASMA BIFURCATION) AND SELECT A BEST APPROACH FOR DETAILED DESIGN, FABRICATION, AND EM GUN TRIALS. THE PHASE I EFFORT WILL DELIVER FOUR RESIN MATRIX CONCEPTS OR 2 METAL MATRIX CONCEPTS. A MATCHED METAL NET MOLDING FABRICATION APPROACH WILL BE USED FOR RMC FABRICATION, THUS ENSURING HIGH QUALITY IN THE PROJECTILE FROM PART TO PART. SPARTA ALSO HAS EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE IN HOT ISOSTATIC PRESSING BORON ALUMINUM IF METAL MATRIX IS THE SELECTED MATERIAL. THE PROJECTILE DESIGN WILL BE SUPPORTED BY A FULL COMPLEMENT OF ANALYSES AND A COMMITMENT AT SPARTA TO EM GUN TECHNOLOGY.