Patent ID: 8489372

Claim:
A method of numerically simulating physical phenomena of an electromagnetic rail-gun comprising: receiving, in a computer system, a description file of a finite element method (FEM) model representing the electromagnetic rail-gun that includes a pair of parallel rails and a projectile located there between; generating a boundary element method (BEM) mesh by including all outer surfaces of the FEM model to represent ambient air surrounding the rails and the projectile,the BEM mesh comprising a purality of BEM faces with each face corresponds to one of the outer surfaces, wherein the BEM mesh is configured to be a continuous surface without any hole; conducting a time-marching simulation of the physical phenomena of the electromagnetic rail-gun using a coupled FEM-BEM procedure with both the FEM model and the BEM mesh, the time-marching simulation includes a plurality of solution cycles; at each solution cycle, removing one or more of the BEM faces that are in contact with one another in and around respective contact interfaces between the rails and either side of the projectile; and creating a plurality of new triangular BEM faces in accordance with a set of rules to patch up two holes as a result of the removed BEM faces for ensuring the patched-up BEM mesh is continuous; and storing the time-marching simulation's results into a file on a storage device and graphically displaying the results in a monitor upon user's instruction after the time-marching simulation has ended, whereby the storage device and the monitor are coupled to the computer system.