General Atomics, Inc.

Thomas W Hurn

Richard L Creedon

Thomas Ryan Jackson

A gun barrel for firing a projectile and particularly a rail gun barrel that comprises a pair of spaced apart rails and a pair of spaced apart insulators, which separate the rails, and together define a composite bore, all disposed centrally within an outer rigid tube. A prestressed filament-wound polymeric resin shell immediately surrounds and applies compressive stress to this composite, bore-defining structure. A pressure medium, positioned between the shell and the interior surface of the outer tube, is operative to apply compressive stress to the shell at least at locations generally radially outward of the rails. The compressive stresses applied by the combination of the prestressed shell and the pressure medium are additive and effectively preload the rails and the composite bore structure to resist overall forces encountered during projectile firing which, in a rail gun, include asymmetric loads upon the rails from electromagnetic repulsion forces and also axisymmetric bursting forces.

Barrels for electromagnetic guns

A rail gun barrel has a pair of opposed spaced apart rails separated by a pair of opposed stepped insulator members, which cooperate to define an internal bore. Interior body members surround the bore-defining components and fill the space between those components and an outer surrounding containment tube of varying curvature. A pressure cavity is provided in the interior body members on at least one side of the bore to load the outer containment tube, which because of its varying curvature, translates a circumferentially variable prestress inversely proportional to its curvature and is selected to match the particular loading scenario.

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Poway, CA, United States of America

Thomas W Hurn