Heat Transfer Modelling and Simulation of a 120 mm Smoothbore Gun Barrel During Interior Ballistics

Abstract

Understanding the heat transfer phenomenon during interior ballistics and consequently presenting a realistic model is very important to predict the temperature distribution inside the cannon barrel, which influences the gun wear and the cook-off. The objective of this work is to present a new detailed numerical model for the prediction of thermal behaviour of a cannon barrel by combining PRODAS interior ballistics simulation with COMSOL simulation. In this study, a numerical model has been proposed for the heating behaviour of a 120 mm smoothbore cannon barrel, taking into account the combustion equation of the JA-2 propellant. Temperature dependent thermophysical properties of product gases were used for the calculation of the convective heat transfer coefficient inside the barrel. Projectile position, velocity of the projectile, gas temperature inside the barrel, volume behind the projectile and mass fraction during interior ballistics have been obtained by PRODAS software and used in the numerical model performed by COMSOL multiphysics finite element modelling and simulation software. Temperature simulations show that maximum wall temperature inside the cannon barrel is observed after 3 ms from fire, when maximum value of the convective heat transfer coefficient inside the barrel is observed. The results reveal that the convective heat transfer coefficient of burned gases inside the gun has major effect than the burned gas temperature on the heat transfer phenomenon.