Dynamic characteristics for three types of railgun constructions were simulated and measured in this work. The simplest construction is the iron-less (IL) railgun, while the two other ones (IC and ICPM) have an iron-core. The iron-core permanent magnet (ICPM) railgun additionally has permanent magnets. To compare their characteristics, similar dimensions of the rails and iron cores were adopted, and the same power supply system was used. Numerical magnetic field analyses and our analytical models have been used to determine the electromagnetic parameters. They were verified experimentally. The transient states of the railguns were studied with our field-circuit mathematical model, and their results were also verified by experiments.

The influence of the capacitor configuration in the pulse supply system for rail accelerators on its efficiency was investigated in the paper. Two different configurations were compared: the first with a parallel connection of capacitors and the second with a parallel-series connection. In both cases, the same number of capacitors was assumed. All other parameters of the device were kept constant, i.e. mass and dimensions of the armature, rail length and stator geometry. A field-circuit model was used to analyse numerically the transients for different capacitor configurations and voltage values. The model was verified experimentally.