A novel mid wall cooling channel design for large calibre guns

It is widely observed that extremely high thermal loads are experienced in large calibre guns with high rate of firing. These extreme thermal load results in rapid barrel heating, which in turn limits the duration of firing that can be sustained without reaching the cook-off temperature for the propellant. After reaching the cook-off temperature, the gun barrels require long duration to cool down before commencement of next firing cycle, which is unacceptable in a combat situation. The investigation proposes integral mid-wall cooling channels in the gun tube to achieve a high rate of fire. A FEA model was developed to simulate a high rate of fire scenario, which demonstrated that the proposed mid-wall cooling system can yield 10 rounds per minute without reaching cook of in a large calibre system like 155/52mm Artillery Gun systems.