A Novel scheme for computing gun barrel temperature history and its experimental validation

Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology December 2010, Vol. 132.An accurate modeling of gun barrel temperature variation over time is important to assess wear and the number of shot fires needed to reach cook-off. Using lumped parameter methods, an internal ballistics code was developed to compute heat transfer to the gun barrel for given ammunition parameters. Subsequently the finite element method was employed to model gun barrel temperature history (temperature variation over time). Simulations were performed for a burst of nine shots and the results were found to match satisfactorily to the corresponding experimental measurements. Wear or erosion of the barrel during a gun fire is very sensitive toward the maximum bore surface temperature. The proposed scheme can accurately simulate gun barrel temperature history; hence improved wear calculations can be made with it. An important and unique advantage of the developed scheme is that it easily couples internal ballistics simulations with the finite element methods.