Purpose

• Development of reliable sliding electric contacts at high current densities
• Medium-term applications: RApid FIre RAilgun (RAFIRA)
• Optimization of payload acceleration using high-end composite materials
• Innovative Segmented Railgun
  SR/3-60
• Concepts for launch to space. 

  Projectile for SR/3-60

Skills

• Physics of high-power railguns
• Pulsed power technology for railguns
• Innovative metrology (e. g. Doppler radar and CMR sensors)
• Dynamical mechanical processes.

Facilities

• PEGASUS (cal.: 40 mm, length: 6 m) with
  10 MJ for payload ~acceleration
• RAFIRA (cal.: 25 mm, length: 3 m) with
  2.7 MJ for air defence
• SR/3-60 (Ø 28 mm, 3 segmented stages at 0.7 m) with 0.5 MJ.

Results

• Hypervelocity: projectiles with 300 g up to
  2.5 km/s
•  Multishot projectiles with 100 g up
  to 2 km/s (1.8 km/s with low rail erosion)
• Proof of concept for space launch
  (PEGASUS): 4 kg up to 500 m/s
• Highly local measurements of strong
  transient magnetic fields using CMR sensors.

X-ray of the separating sabot
(ISL-patent) during launch inside
the railgun