team photo

Figure 1
project photo

Mechanical Engineering
Team 33

Team Members

Faculty Advisor

Joshua Dupont
Patrick Haggerty
Nickolai Serebriakov

Jiong Tang

Sponsor

Naval Undersea Warfare Center

sponsored by
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The Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) is a full spectrum research, test, development, engineering, and support center for the US Navy. They have mentored this project with the goal of researching and building a method of launching an Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) electromagnetically. This project is a continuation of a project, initiated last year, and must feature a metal launching tube and watertight hatch doors at each end of the barrel. This project is also a joint project working with ECE 2020, who is responsible for creating the electromagnetic method for launching the UUV. Following joint efforts by both teams we determined that our project would be a 3-Stage Coil Gun, featuring a 316 stainless steel barrel, and hinged, aluminum hatch doors on the breech and muzzle of the barrel. The barrel material was chosen to minimize electromagnetic interference while maintaining acceptable structural integrity. The breech-side hatch door is connected by tubing to flood and drain valves to fill the loaded barrel with water to equalize pressure when opening the muzzle door for launch, and then to drain the water in the barrel for reloading. This design also features internal rails to fit and launch the same 2inch projectile from last year’s project. The non-ferrous projectile will be launched out of the barrel using a cast iron, consumable sled. We determined this design would be an acceptable iteration to last year’s design to meet the goals set by our mentor.