Abstract
A simple and effective analysis method is presented for gaining a complete transient temperatures on the internal and external surfaces of a 40 mm gun tube subjected to a series of rapid firings. Two series of temperature data for both Hs and As were measured by using two rapid response k-type surface thermocouples near the firing origin and the muzzle. With other available temperature data, patterns of temperature variations of the gun tube as a function of time variable were driven through complete evaluations of the data. It is found that overall temperature gradients which increase exponentially toward saturation temperature, actually consist of a series of linear temperature gradients corresponding to the firing sequences. Under the similar firing sequences, patterns of temperature variations fur both the surface temperatures near the chamber and those near the muzzle were found to have linear temperature gradients with different values and the same response frequencies, i.e. they had peaks and lows in temperatures at the same time. The resultant complete temperature data can be used as the fundamental bases for analysis of thermoelastic properties of the materials such as thermal strain and stress, and f3r the prediction of cannon tube life-time through calculation of wear rate.