Multi-Objective Optimization of Pulsed Power Supply for a Railgun

• Main Authors: Mehrdad Jafarboland, Mehdi Peyvandi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University 2011-07-01
• Series: Journal of Intelligent Procedures in Electrical Technology
• Subjects: Optimization; Genetic Algorithm; pulsed power supply (PPS); railgun
• Online Access: http://jipet.iaun.ac.ir/pdf_4437_7d8d8ac1b483177e1cc9f6a601309b21.html

A novel two-objective optimization design model for pulsed power supply (PPS) is proposed in this paper. The objectives are the muzzle velocity and the stored-to-kinetic energy efficiency. The design variables include the operating voltage and the trigger delay times between segments. The acceleration of the armature is constrained to lower than 106 m/s2. The optimization results for nuzzle velocity and the efficiency separately show the following: 1) The acceleration constraint has great influence on the performance; 2) wide current pulse yields high velocity but low efficiency; and 3) The operating voltage has to be increased to accelerate a heavier projectile to a certain velocity or at a certain efficiency. Pareto solution fronts for various projectile masses are found using the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) under the integration environment of MATLAB software.