IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 47, NO.
5, MAY 2019
Simulation of the Winding Angles’ Influence on the
Dynamic Strength and Stiffness of Filament
Wound Composite Barrel for Railgun
Dongmei Yin , Baoming Li, and Hongcheng Xiao
Abstract— Based on the orthotropic composite cylindrical shell
theory, the radial displacement in composite housing of railgun
barrel is calculated through using the calculation principle of 3-D
effective elastic moduli of composite laminate. Then, the effect
of winding angles on the radial stiffness of barrel is theoretically
forecast with the radial displacement as the measure index.
And, a 3-D nonlinear transient finite-element model based on
the damage mechanics theory and multilayered solid element is
established for the filament wound composite barrel of railgun
under moving electromagnetic pressure. It is used to simulate
the dynamic responses and the initiation and development of
damage for the railgun barrel. The effects of winding angles on
the radial stiffness and dynamic strength of the railgun barrel are
also analyzed with the model. Simulation results reveal that the
influence trend of winding angles on the radial stiffness of barrel
is close to the theoretical prediction result. In addition, the plastic
deformation in rail and damage in filament wound composite
housing increase as the winding angles become smaller. It means
that the strength performance of filament wound composite
barrel for railgun degrades basically with the winding angles
decreasing.
Index Terms— Barrel, composite materials, filament winding,
railgun, strength and stiffness.
I. I NTRODUCTION
W ITH the developments of new technology and materi-
als, electromagnetic launcher has wider application in
military, aerospace, transportation, and other fields. Design for
the structural dynamics of the launcher is a key technology in
its lightweight design to prolong the service life and improves
the launching precision of electromagnetic launcher. So far,
many scholars have carried on a series of research on the
dynamic problems of the electromagnetic launcher. And, a lot
of achievements have been obtained. Tzeng [1] established
a 2-D finite-element model to analyze the stress and strain
in barrel with static load for railgun in the literature. The
dynamic responses of rails in railgun barrels were investigated
based on the theory of a beam on the elastic foundation
in [2]–[4]. In their studies, rail was simplified as a beam
on the foundation, and insulator layers and steel containment
Manuscript received August 28, 2018; revised November 22, 2018; accepted
December 25, 2018. Date of publication January 14, 2019; date of current
version May 8, 2019. The review of this paper was arranged by Senior Editor
D. A. Wetz. (Corresponding author: Dongmei Yin.)
The authors are with the National Key Laboratory of Transient Physics,
Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
(e-mail: dongmeiyin2010@163.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPS.2018.2890453
0093-3813 © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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2233
were treated as elastic foundation. The results reveal that
the transverse displacements of rail are related to the elastic
stiffness coefficient of the elastic foundation, which is related
to the geometric structures and elastic moduli of the insulator
layers and steel containment. Nechitailo and Lewis [5] used
the Bernoulli–Euler analytical model of a beam resting on an
elastic foundation and the Timoshenko and Flügge models to
estimate the critical velocities in rails and tubular containment
shell for a round railgun barrel, respectively. Then, they
studied the buckles’ critical velocities of rails and contain-
ment shell and analyzed the effects of the elastic moduli of
the insulator layers and steel containment on the dynamic
stress and strain in rails through the finite-element method.
Based on the model of the double-layer elastic foundation
beam under the distribution and concentrated loads, He and
Bai [6], [7] analyzed the dynamic responses of the rails and
panels in a rectangular electromagnetic rail launcher. They
investigated the effects of different structures, materials, and
motion parameters on the dynamic responses of the rails and
panels.
Previous works show that the material parameters of the
housing, support structures, and so on, will affect the distribu-
tions of the stress and strain in the rails for the railgun barrel.
But the anisotropy of composite structures, such as insulator
layers, and their dynamic responses during the launching
process were not considered in these studies. It makes that
the effects of the anisotropy of materials on the dynamic
responses of barrel could not be showed. However, more
and more composite materials are used in the railgun barrel,
especially in the large caliber railgun barrel, to meet the needs
of lightweight of weapons. It will lead to anisotropy in barrel
more obviously. So the anisotropy in barrel should be con-
sidered. First, based on the orthotropic composite cylindrical
shell theory, the radial displacement in composite housing of
railgun barrel is predicted by using the calculation principle
of 3-D effective elastic moduli of composite laminate in this
paper. Then, the effects of the winding parameters on the radial
stiffness of barrel are analyzed with considering the radial
displacement as the measure index. And, a 3-D nonlinear
transient finite-element model for railgun composite barrel will
be established based on the damage mechanics to analyze the
dynamic responses of barrel and the evolution of damages in
the filament wound layers. In this paper, we will focus on the
influences of the winding angles on the radial stiffness and
dynamic strength of railgun barrel.
 2234 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 47, NO. 5, MAY 2019

II. T HEORETICAL P REDICTION FOR THE E FFECT OF THE

W INDING A NGLES ON THE BARREL’ S
R ADIAL S TIFFNESS
If the bore in railgun barrel expands out of a certain range,
it will influence the armature’s attitude and stability in the
bore, which will lead to a low firing accuracy. Also it will bring
the seal performance down for the bore, which will make the
leakage of the plasma. Therefore, it is important to ensure the
enough radial stiffness of railgun barrel. And the displacement
in bore, such as the rail’ radial vibration displacement, is often
used to measure the barrel’s radial stiffness. According to the
investigations by Tzeng and Wei [3], the rail’s radial vibration
displacement is related to the geometric structure and elastic
moduli of the filament wound housing in barrel. And in this
paper, a round filament wound composite barrel for railgun
is used to study the effect of filament winding angles on the
barrel’s radial stiffness. The inner layer’s displacement of the
housing can be considered as the measure index for the barrel’s Fig. 1. Relationship between coordinate systems for composite housing of
radial stiffness while keeping the materials’ parameters of the railgun barrel.
rails and inner insulators constant and only changing the wind-
ing angles. Referring to [8], the composite housing of railgun
barrel can be modeled as an orthotropic composite cylindrical
shell with inner pressure, and the radial displacement in the
composite cylindrical shell can be estimated as follows:
r2 P
w= (2 − νθ z ) (1)
2E θ h
where w, r , and h are the radial displacement, effective
radius, and thickness of the filament wound composite hous-
ing, respectively. P is the inner pressure for the composite
housing. E θ and νθ z are the effective elastic modulus in the
circumferential direction and effective Poisson’s ratios of the
composite housing, respectively.
On the basis of the composite laminate theory, 3-D effective
elastic moduli of the composite housing of railgun barrel can
be calculated as follows [9]–[11]:
A11 A22 − A212 A11 A22 − A212 A12
Ez = , Eθ = , νθ z =
A11 h A22 h A22
(2)
where
  2n  

2n
Q2  Q 23 Q 13
A11 = Q 11 − 13 tk , A12 = Q 12 − tk
Q 33 Q 33 k
k=1 k k=1
 
2n
Q2 Fig. 2. Structure of railgun barrel. (a) Geometric structure in the section.
A22 = Q 22 − 23 tk (b) Quarter of finite-element model.
Q 33
k=1 k
where tk is the kth layer thickness in the filament winding lay-
ers and 2n is the total layer numbers. E z is the effective elastic the geometric structure and loading for the composite housing
modulus of the filament wound housing in the axial directions. are supposed to be constants. E θ and νθ z are the functions
Q i j is the stiffness matrix coefficients of the kth layer material of the winding parameters, such as filament winding angle ϕ
in the structural coordinate system (θ –z–r ), which is obtained (ϕ = 90° − α), in (2). Accordingly, we can adjust the radial
by rotating the material coordinate system(1–2–3) with angle displacement of the composite housing through changing its
α about the three axes, as shown in Fig. 1. filament winding parameters to optimize the barrel’s radial
According to (1), the radial displacement of the composite stiffness.
housing is only related to its effective elastic modulus in the This paper will select a round railgun barrel, as shown
circumferential direction and effective Poisson’s ratios, while in Fig. 2(a), to discuss the effect. It includes two copper

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 YIN et al.: SIMULATION OF THE WINDING ANGLES’ INFLUENCE
Fig. 3. Variations of the effective elastic constants of the composite housing
with winding angle ϕ.
Fig. 4. Variations of the effective radial displacement of the composite
housing with winding angle ϕ.
rails, inner insulator (ceramic insulator) and outer insulators
(filament wound layers composed by carbon fiber layer and
glass fiber layers). The radius of bore is 25 mm, the length
of barrel L is 6 m, and the thickness of carbon fiber layer
is 25 mm. Both thicknesses of glass fiber layers 1 and glass
fiber layers 2 are 5 mm. In addition, the winding angles in
glass fiber layers are ±45°, and the ones in carbon fiber layers
are ±ϕ. Then, we will focus on the effects of the changes of
the winding angles ϕ in carbon fiber layers.
From (2), the variations of E z and E θ of the filament wound
housing can be calculated with changing the winding angle ϕ
in carbon fiber layers, as exhibited in Fig. 3. Fig. 3 presents
the effective elastic modulus in the circumferential direction
increases basically as the winding angle ϕ grows. But E θ
has a little change while ϕ is small and has a slight decline
when ϕ is near to 25°. Then, we can get the effective radial
displacement of the composite housing by solving the (1).
If the initial geometric structure of composite housing remains
unchanged, the effective radial displacement of the composite
housing varies inversely with its effective elastic modulus in
the axial direction and decreases with the increase of νθ z . And,
the variation of the effective radial displacement with angle
ϕ is displayed in Fig. 4. A comparison with Fig. 3 reveals
that the change trend of the effective radial displacement w
is opposite to that of E θ . Before ϕ gets to 25°, w increases a
little, and drops obviously while ϕ is larger than 25°. However,
the change of w tends to be stable with a larger ϕ. It means
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2235
further that the barrel’s radial stiffness enlarges basically with
the increase of angle ϕ, and only appears a fluctuation while
ϕ is close to 25°. It also changes slowly when ϕ is bigger.
III. N UMERICAL S IMULATION FOR THE DYNAMIC
R ESPONSES OF THE R AILGUN ’ S
C OMPOSITE BARREL
A. 3-D Nonlinear Transient Finite-Element Model of Barrel
The above filament wound composite barrel for railgun
is also adopted to analyze the barrel’s dynamic responses
under the moving electromagnetic pressure at a high speed.
In order to improve the computational efficiency, a quarter
of 3-D finite-element model of railgun barrel is modeled in
LS-DYNA, as exhibited in Fig. 2(b). The planes oS1 and
oS2 are the symmetric planes of the barrel. Copper rail and
ceramic insulator are both meshed by eight-node constant
stress solid element. Owing to larger thickness of compos-
ite housing and different material properties in each layer,
each layer modeled by one solid element will lead to larger
model size and calculation amount. And if it is modeled
with shell elements wherein the normal stresses are neglected.
Accordingly, eight-node multilayered solid element is adopted
to model the filament wound composite housing, which uses
one integration point per layer and multilayers through the
thickness. Different layers’ material properties can be obtained
by defining different ply orientations for each layer inside
one solid element. And, the number of elements through the
thickness is remarkably reduced to simplify the calculation,
and a certain precision of calculation can also be ensured [12].
In this paper, the filament wound composite housing of railgun
barrel is meshed with 14 multilayered solid elements in the
radial direction of barrel, in which both two elements for
glass fiber layers 1 and glass fiber layers 2, 10 elements
for carbon fiber layers, as exhibited in Fig. 2(b). There are
four layers in each solid element. The barrel is divided by
600 elements along the length and has 75 600 elements in
total finite-element model. In addition, the element coordinate
system of this multilayered solid element is established by
referring to the global cylindrical coordinate system, and its
coordinate axis x  , y  , and z  are correspond to the global
cylindrical coordinate axes in the circumferential, axial and
radial directions, respectively.
1) Material Model and Failure Criterion: Ceramic insula-
tor is simulated with the Johnson–Holmquist plasticity dam-
age model in LS-DYNA, and its material parameters are
listed in Table I. And, the copper rail is modeled with
the material model of elastic plastic with kinematic hard-
ening. Its density, Poisson’s ratio, yield stress, and Young’s
modulus are 8937.5 kg/m3, 0.34, 250 MPa, and 111 GPa,
respectively.
Several damages, such as matrix crack and fiber crack, have
occurred in the filament wound composite housing of rail-
gun barrel with moving electromagnetic pressure. Therefore,
the filament wound layers are simulated with an enhanced
composite damage material mode, namely, MAT55, and their
material parameters are provided in Table II.
This material model is embedded with Tsai–Wu failure
criterion to detect the appearances of the failures in the
 2236
TABLE I
I NPUT PARAMETERS D EFINITIONS OF M ATERIAL P ROPERTIES
OF C ERAMIC I NSULATORS [13], [14]
TABLE II
M ATERIAL PARAMETERS FOR F ILAMENT W OUND L AYERS
winding layers. Once the damage factors which are the func-
tions of stress components in the winding layers reach some
specific values, the corresponding failure modes will happen.
In the failure criteria, failure modes caused by tension and
compression for the fiber and matrix are treated, respectively,
as in [15] and [16]. According to the references, when one of
the failure conditions is satisfied in a ply within the element,
some specified elastic properties of that ply are set to zero.
2) Boundary Conditions and Loading: All freedom degrees
on the top end of breech are constrained. And the outer surface
of barrel, which is between the breech and the location on
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 47, NO. 5, MAY 2019
the quarter of barrel length away from breech, is loaded with
simply supported constraint. Then, a railgun barrel with partial
cantilever is modeled. In addition, the symmetric constraints
are acted on the symmetric planes oS1 and oS2 in the quarter
of the railgun barrel’s model.
If the gravity of the armature and the action between the
armature and rail are ignored, only the moving electromagnetic
pressures act on the interior of rails, which are equal on
the top and bottom rails. The electromagnetic pressure is
set to 200 MPa and moves with a constant acceleration
5.208 × 105 m/s2 .
It is assumed that there are adhesive bonds on the contact
interfaces among the copper rail, ceramic insulator, carbon
fiber layers, glass fiber layers 1, and glass fiber layers 2. These
adhesive bonds are modeled with tiebreak contacts in this
paper. And, the tiebreak failure criterion can be expressed by
the function of normal and shear stress components [13], [17]:
    
|σn | 2 |σ S | 2 < 1 unfailed
f = + (3)
NFLS SFLS ≥ 1 failed
In which σn and σs are the normal and shear stress
components on the contact interface, respectively. NFLS and
SFLS are the normal and shear failure stress for the bonding
material.
B. Results and Discussion
The finite-element models for the filament wound composite
barrels of railguns with different carbon fibers’ winding angles:
ϕ = 90°, 85°, 65°, 45°, 25°, 5°, and 0°, are established,
respectively, to analyze the dynamic responses of the barrel
under moving electromagnetic load.
1) Radial Displacement Response in Filament Wound Com-
posite Housing for Barrel: According to the above theoretical
prediction, the effect of winding angles on the barrel’s radial
stiffness is analyzed by numerical simulation, while the inner
layer’s radial displacement of the housing is also considered
as the measure index. Fig. 5 presents the nodes’ maximum
radial displacements in the inner layer of the housing, which
are located away from the breech with different distances.
And, these nodes’ radial positions are located on A and B,
as shown in Fig. 2, which are also on the plane oS1 and
oS2, respectively. Owing to the incomplete axial symmetry
electromagnetic pressure on the rails, round railgun barrel
appears approximately oval deformation. It means that the
barrel structure near the plane oS1 expands outward while the
one close to the plane oS2 moves inward. If we suppose the
direction of expanding outward is positive, it can be illustrated
why the values of the maximum radial displacements showed
in Fig. 5(a) and (b) exhibit positive and negative. Though
the directions of the nodes’ maximum radial displacements
on the plane oS1 and oS2 are different, the trends of their
changes are similar. With the increase of ϕ, the maximum
radial displacement grows first, and gets to the top with ϕ
near to 5°, then drops rapidly. Fig. 5 also reveals that the
maximum radial displacement has a great change when ϕ is
small and gets a stable change with a bigger ϕ. And, its trend
is basically close to the one predicted by (1). Nevertheless, the
 YIN et al.: SIMULATION OF THE WINDING ANGLES’ INFLUENCE 2237

Fig. 5. Maximum radial displacements of the nodes in the inner layer of the
housing and located away from the breech with different distances. (a) Several
nodes on the location A. (b) Several nodes on the location B.

values of the maximum radial displacements gained by numer-

ical simulation are obviously larger than those calculated
by (1). It is because a dynamic load is used in the numerical
simulation while a static load applied in the above theoretical
prediction.
Moreover, the barrel appears transverse vibration under
the electromagnetic pressure moving at high speed. And,
the maximum amplitude of vibration in the bore is located
on the position about 3.5–5.5-m away from the breech, which
can be concluded by Fig. 5. It reveals that the resonance occurs
in this region of the barrel, obviously for the smaller ϕ. This
result is consistent with the one obtained in [10]. And in [10],
this model with ϕ = 45° is also successfully used to predict
the critical velocity of composite housing in railgun barrel.
2) Damages of the Filament Wound Composite Barrel for
Railgun: The barrel bears a large electromagnetic pressure in
a very short time, which will lead large stress and strain in the
barrel. And, there may be damages in the barrel’s materials,
and on the contact interfaces among the materials in barrel.
As a direct bearing component, there will be strong shock
waves in the rails, first. It will cause local plastic deformations
in the rails. According to the simulation, the maximum plastic
strain in the copper rails presents mainly an increase trend
with the growth of ϕ. But there is a little drop when ϕ is
close to 85° and a slow change with the larger ϕ.
Figs. 6 and 7 display the distributions of elements’ inte-
gration point variables for the matrix tensile and compressive
Fig. 6. Distributions of elements’ integration point variables for the matrix
tensile failure in the composite housing of the railgun barrel with different ϕ
at 4.799 ms.
failure in the composite housing of the railgun barrel with
different ϕ at t = 4.799 ms, respectively. While the value of
integration point variable is 1, it means that there is no failure
in the element. And while it is [0, 1), the corresponding failure
happens in the element. The simulation results show that there
are different degrees of matrix tensile failure in the carbon fiber
layers, glass fiber layers 1 and 2, as exhibited in Fig. 6. First,
this failure mode appears in succession on these locations as
follows: near the plane oS1 and oS2 of the glass fiber layers 1,
in the inner layer and around the plane oS1 of the glass fiber
layers 2, and in the inner layer and close to the plane oS2 of
the carbon fiber layers. Then, the damage spreads to the other
places with the decrease of ϕ.
In Fig. 7, the matrix compressive failure occurs only near the
plane oS2 of the glass fiber layers 1 with a bigger ϕ. While ϕ

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 2238
Fig. 7. Distributions of elements’ integration point variables for the matrix
compressive failure in the composite housing of the railgun barrel with
different ϕ at 4.799 ms.
reduces to about 25°, there is matrix compressive failure in
the carbon fiber layers, glass fiber layers 1 and 2. And, this
damage in the glass fiber layers 2 starts from its outer layer
and around the plane oS1, but the one in the carbon fiber
layers happens first in its inner layer and near the plane oS2.
When ϕ gets a larger value, the fiber compressive failure
also only appears in the outer layer of the glass fiber layers 1
and near the plane oS2. With the decrease of ϕ, this failure
mode happens in the glass fiber layers 2 and carbon fiber
layers in succession. And when ϕ declines to 5°, there is fiber
tensile failure in both glass fiber layers, as shown in Fig. 8.
Both glass fiber layers have obvious fiber breakage.
In summary, the damages in the composite housing of
the railgun barrel appear first near the symmetrical planes
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 47, NO. 5, MAY 2019
Fig. 8. Distributions of elements’ integration point variables for the fiber
failures in the composite housing of the railgun barrel with ϕ = 5° at 4.95 ms.
(a) Fiber tensile failure. (b) Fiber compressive failure.
oS1 and oS2. Because of the incomplete axial symmetry
electromagnetic pressure on the rails, the distributions of the
stress and strain in the round railgun barrel present incomplete
axial symmetry. So there is a great concentrate of stress
and strain in the vicinity of the plane oS1 and oS2. The
simulation results show that the damages in the composite
housing are growing with the decline of ϕ, which indicates
that the strength of the composite housing is dropping while
ϕ is decreasing. Moreover, the change trend of the plastic
deformation in the rail is similar to the one of the damages in
the composite housing, and it further reveals that the overall
strength performance of the railgun barrel drops with the
decrease of ϕ.
In Figs. 6 and 7, it can also be observed that these failure
modes occur mainly in the area about 3.5–5.5-m away from
the breech, which is close to where the maximum amplitude
of vibration in the bore appears. It further proves that there is
resonance occurs on this position of the barrel, and it will be
more vulnerable to be damaged.
Moreover, the tiebreak contacts, which have been defined
among the materials of the filament wound composite barrel
for railgun, will be more likely to be destroyed by the
combine actions of the shock wave and its evolutional stress
waves. In simulation results, there are various degrees of
node contacts’ failures on the contact interfaces between rail
and inner ceramic insulator and between glass fiber layers 1
and carbon fiber layers. As the winding angle ϕ decreases,
the contact interfaces between the liner structure (rails and
ceramic insulators) and the glass fiber layers 1 and between
the carbon fiber layers and glass fiber layers 2 have local
contact failures. Then when ϕ reduces to about 25°, the contact
interface between the rail and ceramic insulator begins to
appear obvious separation due to the failures of node contacts
on the interface. Fig. 9 exhibits the conditions on the contact
 YIN et al.: SIMULATION OF THE WINDING ANGLES’ INFLUENCE 2239

Fig. 10. x  y  shear stresses for the elements located in the radial direction
near the plane oS1 and with 3L/4 away from the breech while ϕ = 85°, 65°,
45°, and 25°.

Fig. 9. Contact interface between the rail and inner ceramic insulator in the
railgun barrel with ϕ = 25°. (a) Local separation on the contact interface at
4.799 ms. (b) Maximum shear stresses of the locations on this interface and
away from the breech with different distances.

interface between the rail and ceramic insulator. And at

4.799 ms, there is a local separation on this contact interface,
as observed in Fig. 9(a). Fig. 9(b) illustrates the variations of
the maximum shear stresses of the locations on this contact
interface, which are also away from the breech with different
distances. The maximum shear stresses of some locations
above are exceeding the shear failure parameter defined for
this contact interface, and this will lead to shear failure on
this contact interface which can cause the separation on it.
Figs. 10 and 11 present the elements’ shear stresses in the
x  y  plane with ϕ = 85°, 65°, 25°, and 5°. These elements are
on the barrel’s section away from the breech with 3L/4 and
also located along the radial direction (elements 1–14 are
from bore to outermost surface). Furthermore, the elements
in Figs. 10 and 11 are near the symmetric plane oS1 and
oS2, respectively. From these pictures, we can observe that
the extreme values of the elements’ x  y  shear stresses are
focused on around the elements 2, 3, 4, and 5. It indicates that Fig. 11. x  y  shear stresses for the elements located in the radial direction
the shear stresses on the contact interfaces between the glass near the plane oS2 and with 3L/4 away from the breech while ϕ = 85°, 65°,
fiber layers 1 and carbon fiber layers, and between the liner 45°, and 25°.
structure and the glass fiber layers 1, reach to the maximum
values first, so these interfaces will be the first to have the shear around the symmetrical plane oS1 or oS2. In Figs. 12 and 13,
failures. To further explain it, the maximum shear stresses the maximum shear stresses on some positions are greater than
of the locations on the contact interface between the glass the shear failure parameter defined for this contact interface
fiber layers 1 and carbon fiber layers with ϕ = 65° and and it will lead to shear failure on this interface. Combining
25° are displayed in Figs. 12 and 13. And these locations Fig. 9(b) and Figs. 12 and 13, it can also be seen that the
are away from the breech with different distances and also extreme values of maximum shear stresses on the contact

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 2240
Fig. 12. Maximum shear stresses of the locations near the plane oS1 on
the contact interfaces between the glass fiber layers 1 and carbon fiber layers
away from the breech with different distances while ϕ = 65° and 25°.
Fig. 13. Maximum shear stresses of the locations near the plane oS2 on
the contact interfaces between the glass fiber layers 1 and carbon fiber layers
away from the breech with different distances while ϕ = 65° and 25°.
interface happen on the position about 3.5–5.5-m away from
the breech, which means that there is a resonance for the barrel
when the load moving to this position.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 47, NO. 5, MAY 2019
IV. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, a theoretical model is developed to predict the
radial displacement in composite housing of the railgun barrel,
which is further used as the measure index to investigate the
effect of winding angles on the radial stiffness of barrel. Its
result is compared with that obtained by the subsequent 3-D
nonlinear transient finite-element analysis. The anisotropy of
barrel’s materials is considered in both two analytical methods.
Both results reveal that the radial stiffness of barrel grows
mainly with the increase of ϕ. But when ϕ is larger, it has
a slow growth, which means that increasing ϕ has play no
important role in improving the radial stiffness of barrel at
this moment. The effects of winding angles on the dynamic
responses and the evolution of damages for the railgun barrel
are analyzed by the finite-element simulation. The results
exhibit some changing rules of the dynamic distributions of
stresses, displacements, and damages of the barrel under the
moving electromagnetic pressure with the change of ϕ. These
reveal that the barrel’s overall strength and the shear strength
for the contact interfaces among the barrel’s materials drop
with the decrease of ϕ.
In addition, combing with the research in [18], the influenc-
ing trend of winding angles ϕ on the axial bending stiffness of
the barrel is basically opposite with those on the radial stiffness
and strength of the barrel. It reveals that the mechanical prop-
erties of the filament wound composite barrel for the railgun
restrict each other and cannot be improved at the same time
only by adjusting the winding angles. Therefore, in order to
obtain a railgun barrel with relatively superior comprehensive
performances, optimal design of multiparameters should be
carried out according to the requirements of the actual project.
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potential for thick composite structural analysis,” in Proc. 11th Int. Conf. China.
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Dongmei Yin was born in China. She received the
B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Nanjing Univer-
sity of Science and Technology (NJUST). Nanjing,
China.
She is currently with NJUST. Her current research
interests include the electromagnetic launch technol-
ogy and composite material structures.
Hongcheng Xiao was born in China. He is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree with the National Key
Laboratory of Transient Physics, Nanjing University
of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China, with a
focus on composite railgun containment.

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