Development of the primary mirror segment support assemblies for the Thirty Meter Telescope

Eric Ponslet; Dan Blanco; Myung Cho; Terry Mast; Jerry Nelson; R. J. Ponchione; Mark Sirota; Vince Stephens; Larry Stepp; Alan Tubb; Eric C. Williams

doi:10.1117/12.670604

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6 July 2006 Development of the primary mirror segment support assemblies for the Thirty Meter Telescope

Eric Ponslet, Dan Blanco, Myung Cho, Terry Mast, Jerry Nelson, R. J. Ponchione, Mark Sirota, Vince Stephens, Larry Stepp, Alan Tubb, Eric C. Williams

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Proceedings Volume 6273, Optomechanical Technologies for Astronomy; 627319 (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.670604
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

This paper describes the studies performed to establish a baseline conceptual design of the Segment Support Assembly (SSA) for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) primary mirror. The SSA uses a combination of mechanical whiffletrees for axial support, a central diaphragm for lateral support, and a whiffletree-based remote-controlled warping harness for surface figure corrections. Axial support whiffletrees are numerically optimized to minimize the resulting gravityinduced deformation. Although a classical central diaphragm solution was eventually adopted, several lateral support concepts are considered. Warping harness systems are analyzed and optimized for their effectiveness at correcting second and third order optical aberrations. Thermal deformations of the optical surface are systematically analyzed using finite element analysis. Worst-case performance of the complete system as a result of gravity loading and temperature variations is analyzed as a function of zenith angle using an integrated finite element model.

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Eric Ponslet, Dan Blanco, Myung Cho, Terry Mast, Jerry Nelson, R. J. Ponchione, Mark Sirota, Vince Stephens, Larry Stepp, Alan Tubb, and Eric C. Williams "Development of the primary mirror segment support assemblies for the Thirty Meter Telescope", Proc. SPIE 6273, Optomechanical Technologies for Astronomy, 627319 (6 July 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.670604

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