Research on Vehicle-Mounted Electromagnetic Ejecti
Research on Vehicle-Mounted Electromagnetic Ejecti
Research Article
Research on Vehicle-Mounted Electromagnetic Ejection Remote
Fire Extinguishing System
Xing Wang,1 Yadong Li,2 Zhenrui Shi,3 Baoshan Cao,4 Yanjie Cao,4 Hui Zhao,3
and Xun Gong 3
1
Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an, China
2
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
3
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenyang Ligong University, Shenyang, China
4
Liaoning Shunda Machinery Manufacturing (Group) Co., Ltd., Huludao, China
Copyright © 2022 Xing Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article first introduces the characteristics and disadvantages of traditional remote fire extinguishing technology and proposes a
remote fire extinguishing system based on electromagnetic ejection. Based on the finite element analysis method and the grid matrix
method, a seven-segment electromagnetic launcher model is designed. As the initial energy source, the capacitor can accelerate a
10 kg fire extinguishing bomb to 113 m/s with a range of 2 km. The results show that the electromagnetic catapult designed in this
study can meet the needs of fire extinguishing bombs. This paper also designs the overall structure of the vehicle electromagnetic
catapult remote fire extinguishing system, discusses its role in the field of firefighting, and prospects the future work.
1. Introduction ladders, fire extinguishing bombs are more mobile, and the
fire extinguishing height can reach hundreds of meters,
The traditional long-range fire extinguishing techniques are without being affected by the surrounding environment.
shoulder-fired, air-propelled, air-dropped, artillery, and
rocket-propelled. The shoulder-mounted type generally
means that firefighters carry water guns and fire extin- 1.1. The Research Status. Hungarian engineers invented a fire
guishers and other fire extinguishing equipment into the fire extinguishing bomb with a large caliber, long-range, large
scene. The water gun is connected to the fire truck through a capacity, and continuous firing [1]. In 2001, Russia refitted
hose. After the firefighters enter the fire site, the water in the the BTR-80 vehicle into a fire extinguishing vehicle, the
fire truck is pumped to the fire site by a water pump, and the model is GAZ-5903, which can continuously launch 22 fire
water gun is sprayed to extinguish the fire. The original fire extinguishing bombs with a range of 50 ∼ 300 m and can
extinguishing technology can only extinguish low-altitude extinguish three types of explosive dangerous goods A, B,
and short-distance fires but does not perform well on long- and C fire. The fire extinguishing vehicle adopts the military
distance and ultrahigh fires. Therefore, various fire extin- fire control system with a high level of automation [2]. In
guishing bombs for long distance fires have been developed 2005, Italy developed an air fire cannon with strong mobility
at home and abroad. Fire extinguishing bombs are launched and a maximum firing range of up to 200 m, but it could not
into the fire site by fire extinguishing guns, aircraft, etc., and fire continuously and the fire extinguishing efficiency was
detonate at the right time to disperse the fire extinguishing low [3]. Germany has developed a fire extinguishing missile,
agent in the bomb to the fire site for extinguishment. which can carry 500 kg of foam fire extinguishing agent and
Compared with fire extinguishing equipment such as cloud spray continuously for 20 ∼ 30 s. The fire extinguishing
2 Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Energy Drive
Discharge
Storage Pulse Coil and
Switch
Control Capacitor Projectile
Unit
The k section
weight of the launcher and reduce the flexibility and 2. Electromagnetic Ejection Remote Fire
mobility of the air thrust equipment. Extinguishing Technology
(3) Large Potential Safety Hazard of Explosive Devices.
The rocket-propelled long-range fire extinguishing 2.1. Electromagnetic Ejection Technology. Aiming at the
system relies on gunpowder to be propelled. As the problems of remote fire extinguishing technology mentioned
gunpowder is a kind of explosive product, it is strictly above, this paper proposes a remote fire extinguishing
controlled. The purchase of gunpowder requires the technology based on vehicle electromagnetic launch. Elec-
approval of relevant departments, and there are strict tromagnetic emission technology is a revolution of the launch
requirements for storage, so the rocket-propelled fire mode after the launch of mechanical energy and chemical
extinguishing system cannot be commercialized. Its energy. It uses electromagnetic force (energy) to propel the
use is strictly restricted, cannot be close to the object to a high speed or ultrahigh speed launch technology.
dangerous and explosive petrochemical products, By transforming the electromagnetic energy into the in-
and also cannot be close to the fire scene; otherwise, stantaneous kinetic energy required by the launch load, it can
it is easy to become the source of fire. Artillery and accelerate the load from grams to dozens of tons of high speed
rocket-propelled versions require increased gun- in a short distance and break the speed and energy limit of the
powder, but residual gunpowder can cause a sec- traditional launch mode, which is the inevitable part of the
ondary fire. future launch mode [8]. Electromagnetic coil propulsion
occurs with the primary application of strong pulse current,
forming secondary synchronous or asynchronous electro-
1.3. Technical Route. This research adopts the research route magnetic traveling wave and the projectile induced by the
as shown in Figure 1 [7]. Through the design of the main eddy current interaction to achieve the projectile acceleration.
structure and control module of the electromagnetic ejection Electromagnetic catapult by electromagnetic propulsion has
system, the mathematical model is constructed to determine the advantages of long range, high launch frequency, strong
the parameters, and the simulation is conducted to test the persistence, and ability to realize cold launch, low operating
simulation effect. cost, and easy operation and maintenance.
4 Mathematical Problems in Engineering
S1 Rc1
C1
Lp1 Rp1
S2 Rc2
Lp2 Rp2
C2
Lpm Rpm
Sk
Rck
Ck
Table 1: Notations.
Symbol Definition
I The column vector of coil current and armature wire current
R The diagonal matrix of coil resistance and armature current wire resistance
L The diagonal matrix of current wire inductance and coil inductance
M Mutual inductance between coils current wires and between coils and current wires
C The capacitance value vector of the capacitor
Vc The terminal voltage vector of the capacitor
X The speed of motion of the armature
Y The position of the armature
M The quality of the armature
The Sandia Laboratories in the United States is one of the a 4-segment coil transmitter that can launch objects with a
first laboratories in the world to study electromagnetic mass of 5 kg to 500 m/s [10]. It can be seen that electro-
catapult [9]. As early as 2007, Sandia Laboratories carried magnetic ejection technology has been studied deeply and
out research on the electromagnetic gun project, using a can be applied in the field of remote fire suppression.
synchronous coaxial coil launcher, and 45 coils were syn- Electromagnetic catapult technology has rich application
chronized to form a 3.7-meter-long gun barrel with a caliber scenarios. In military, it is used as an ultrahigh speed kinetic
of 120 mm, and the 18 kg M934 mortar simulation projectile energy weapon [11] for strategic defense and tactics. In the
was pushed to the exit speed of 424 m/s. In China, the aerospace field, it can be used for ground-to-air directional
Institute of Electrical Engineering of Chinese Academy of launch rockets and pure payloads, and in space, it is used to
Sciences has also carried out related research, and developed promote spacecraft to carry out orbit transfer in the field of
Mathematical Problems in Engineering 5
Magnetic Field
2.2. Principle and Modeling of Electromagnetic Ejection.
At present, there are two main methods to study coil gun:
circuit model analysis method and finite element method Figure 4: Technical principle of electromagnetic coil transmitter.
[12]. In this study, finite element analysis and the grid matrix
method were used. Due to the skin effect, the induced
current distribution on the electrical pivot section is not This research adopts the simulation program [14] of the
uniform. If the armature is divided into m concentric rings, process, as shown in Figure 5, the first input system pa-
then when the axial cross-sectional area of the ring is small rameters, and the calculation system matrix. The input
enough, the induced current can be considered to be evenly system parameters include the drive coil geometry, pro-
distributed on the cross section; that is, m loops are used to jectile geometric parameters, material parameters of the
make it equivalent to the original armature. We can assume driving coil and projectile, the drive coil on the number of
that the excitation coils have a total of k stages. segments and its connection mode, each power supply
Figure 2 shows the basic process of electromagnetic parameters, calculation of system parameters including the
ejection. Figure 3 is the equivalent circuit model. self-inductance, mutual inductance, resistance, and the
The excitation current is transient in the firing process of fragmentation of the projectile self-inductance, mutual
the coil gun, and the lumped parameter model of each coil inductance and resistance. Then, according to the different
can be established with the parameters of resistance, self- connection modes of the drive coils, the parallel or series
induction, mutual induction, inductance gradient, etc. Fi- calculation models are selected to calculate the trigger delay
nally, the lumped parameter model can be summed up as the between phases. Then, by solving the differential equations,
initial value problem of the nonlinear variable coefficient the voltage, current, displacement, velocity, acceleration,
ordinary differential equation. The primary notations used and the temperature rise of the projectile and the driving
in this paper are listed in Table 1 [15–20]. coil are obtained. Then, judge whether to leave the coil or
The ordinary differential equation can be established by not [21–25]. If so, calculate the energy error of this section,
the grid matrix method: average temperature rise, kinetic energy conversion effi-
ciency, etc. If not, the time step is increased, and the
(R + M) dI Vc − RI − v dMI. (1)
variables of the differential equation are recalculated. When
The relation between capacitor voltage and excitation leaving the coil of this stage, judge whether to leave the final
current is coil. If leaving, output results and the process will be
terminated. If not, increase the number of segments of the
dVc driving coil, take the projector current, displacement, and
C − Id. (2)
pdt time variables as the system parameters input of the next
segment of the driving coil, and start the process again
The motion governing equation of the coil emitter
[26–30].
system is
Figures 6 ∼ 7 show the simulation and experimental
pd results of the three-phase capacitor current. The black line
mpdt � Ip , (3)
Ip
dx represents the experimental results, the red dotted line
represents the mesh matrix, and the blue line represents the
dx simulation results of the finite element method. The picture
v. (4) shows the velocity and force of the projectile as it passes
dt through the 7-stage electromagnetic coil emitter.
It can be seen from the figure that the initial velocity of
the projectile in the first to seventh stages is 13 m/s, 42 m/s,
2.3. Simulation and Experiment of Electromagnetic Coil 84 m/s, 104 m/s, 112 m/s, 112 m/s, and 113 m/s, respec-
Propulsion. In this study, a seven-section electromagnetic tively. The maximum axial force of the projectile in the
coil ejection device is designed. Each segment consists of six third stage is 47 kN. Compared with the results of finite
coils, and each coil is wound by solid copper wire. The di- element analysis, the mesh matrix, and the actual test, it can
ameter of the emitter is 120 mm, and the total length is 1 m. be found that the simulation results fit well with the ex-
The structure of the ejection device is shown in Figure 4 [13]. perimental results.
6 Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Start
Input system
parameters
Series
Connection mode Using series formula, the
of drive coil model is transformed
into series model
Parallel
The number of drive coil
Using the parallel formula, segments plus one
the model is transformed Solving Differential
Into a parallel model Equations
Yes
Whether to leave No
the final coil
Yes
output
End
3. Vehicle-Mounted Electromagnetic Catapult operating principle of the remote fire extinguishing system is
Extinguishing System shown in the figure below. Considering the power con-
sumption problem in areas with insufficient power, the
Based on the above simulation results of electromagnetic diesel generator is used as the secondary power supply and
ejection and existing firefighting technology, we propose a connected to the charging module to supply energy to the
vehicle-mounted firefighting system based on electromag- system. The charging module is connected to the energy
netic ejection [30, 31]. The overall structure is shown in storage capacitor, and the capacitor is charged after the
Figure 8: charging module is charged. The laser rangefinder sends the
The whole system consists of five parts: vehicle body, position signal to the discharge control module, and the
launching power supply, electromagnetic propulsion device, central controller controls the capacitor discharge to com-
projectile body loading device, and diesel generator. The plete the emission as the driving coil function [32, 33].
Mathematical Problems in Engineering 7
30
Test
10
-10
-20
-30
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Time (ms)
Figure 6: Simulation and experimental results of capacitive three-phase current.
125 80
100 60
Velocity (m/s)
75
Force (kN)
40
50 Velocity (3D)
20
Force (3D)
25 Velocity (2D)
Force (2D) 0
0 -10
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.1
Time (ms)
Figure 7: Variation of velocity and thrust of the fire extinguishing projectile.
Figure 8: Overall structure of vehicle-mounted electromagnetic catapult remote fire extinguishing system.
8 Mathematical Problems in Engineering
The system has the following characteristics: electromagnetic propulsion, and it can fire more heavy fire
bomb, so the fire extinguishing effect will be more obvious.
(1) Vehicle-mounted electromagnetic coil launch technol-
ogy, long-distance throwing efficient special fire bombs
(2) To ensure the safety of operators, with high fire 4.3. Summary. Compared with other fire guns, the vehicle-
extinguishing efficiency, low operating cost, and easy mounted electromagnetic catapult fire extinguishing system
operation and maintenance has many incomparable advantages, but it is still in the
preliminary research stage, and there are many problems to
(3) No relevant products in the field of fire protection be solved:
promote the development of fire protection
equipment (1) Structural design and optimization of vehicle-
mounted electromagnetic ejection system
The electromagnetic catapult on-board fire extinguish-
ing system proposed in this study has the following ad- (2) Thrust fluctuation problem
vantages compared with the aforementioned on-board (3) Heating during launch, etc.
multipipe fire extinguishing system: Further research is needed on these issues in the future.
(1) The equipment is small in size and can pass through
narrow streets, which is conducive to quick rescue Data Availability
(2) Electromagnetic propulsion can launch heavier
shells and has flexible distance adjustment, and the All data generated or analyzed during this study are included
fire extinguishing effect is more obvious in this article.
(3) It can realize joint control with the UAV system,
dynamically collect fire site information, formulate Disclosure
flexible fire extinguishing plan, realize unmanned
fire site operation, and ensure the life safety of front- Xing Wang, Yadong Li, and Zhenrui Shi are cofirst authors.
line firefighters
Conflicts of Interest
4. Summary and Prospect
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
4.1. Summary. In view of the severe fire situation facing the
world at present, this paper analyzes the characteristics and
existing problems of the traditional remote fire extinguishing
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