Structural Design and Simulation of Ultralightweight Technology for Research in Astronomy

Abstract

This paper addresses structural design, analysis, fabrication, and experimental characterization of a research telescope prototype comprising fiber reinforced plastic materials, designed to demonstrate to the astronomical community that a viable alternative exists to traditional glass-mirror technology. Robust knowledge-based design tools for geometric simulations are developed, and discretization-based simulations in computations fluid dynamics and finite element analysis, and static and dynamics structural simulations and experimental validation are addressed. The carbon fiber cyanate ester mirror and optical tube assembly appears to meet design requirements, but more design iterations between engineers and astronomers are needed to improve some detail design decisions. Pressure, thermal, and inertial load studies show that global displacement is not the most concerning problem, but rather local deflection between substructure is more problematic. Thus a constant core structure is recommended. Pressure loads are the most critical, though thermal loads are of the same order of magnitude. Deflections caused by the pressure load were eliminated by fully enclosing the telescope in a dome, thus making the thermal load the most critical loading condition for local buckling. Damping treatments are likely required due to the complexity of many of the secondary attachments on the optical tube assembly.