Automated design technique for steel trusses supporting close-packed hexagonal mirror segment arrays

Frank B. Ray

doi:10.1117/12.176266

1 June 1994 Automated design technique for steel trusses supporting close-packed hexagonal mirror segment arrays

Frank B. Ray

Proceedings Volume 2199, Advanced Technology Optical Telescopes V; (1994) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.176266
Event: 1994 Symposium on Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation for the 21st Century, 1994, Kailua, Kona, HI, United States

Abstract

One method of reducing the cost of a large terrestrial telescope is to fix its spherical primary mirror with respect to gravity and utilize a tracking mechanism revolved about the mirror's center of curvature to compensate for an astronomical image's ephemeral position and rate. To maximize throughput, hexagonal segments may be arrayed in a close-packed fashion on the primary sphere, but because regular hexagons do not tile a spherical surface, either the hexagons must be irregular, as in the Keck 10 m telescope, or they must be irregularly spaced. In either case, we can exploit the natural symmetry of the underlying geometry in order to define a truss generation scheme which is generally useful in both design and cost reduction.

Citation Download Citation

Frank B. Ray "Automated design technique for steel trusses supporting close-packed hexagonal mirror segment arrays", Proc. SPIE 2199, Advanced Technology Optical Telescopes V, (1 June 1994); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.176266

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