Interior Ballistics

The process of firing a gun is one of the most extreme in classical physics. It is of very short duration and involves forces and accelerations of enormous magnitude, together with high temperatures (see Table 2.8). Recording and processing such events electronically poses problems that are difficult or even impossible to resolve, even with the most modern measuring and data-processing technology. Determining maximum gas pressure, the gas-pressure curve and the velocity of the projectile—especially muzzle velocity—is often considered the central problem of interior ballistics.