Physical Scale Modeling to Predict Current Diffusion in Solid Armatures

Scaling laws relating current diffusion in a high-conductivity material at low velocity to current diffusion in a lower conductivity material are derived. The design of an experiment to determine the validity of the scaling relationships is described. If the scaling is shown to be valid, then information for predicting thermal and mechanical loading in a solid armature (for a railgun) at high velocity will be available by measuring the current distribution at low velocity