Wind loads on ground-based telescopes
Abstract
One of the factors that can influence the performance of large optical telescopes is the vibration of the telescope structure due to unsteady wind inside the telescope enclosure. Estimating the resulting degradation in image quality has been difficult because of the relatively poor understanding of the flow characteristics. Significant progress has recently been made, informed by measurements in existing observatories, wind-tunnel tests, and computational fluid dynamic analyses. We combine the information from these sources to summarize the relevant wind characteristics and enable a model of the dynamic wind loads on a telescope structure within an enclosure. The amplitude, temporal spectrum, and spatial distribution of wind disturbances are defined as a function of relevant design parameters, providing a significant improvement in our understanding of an important design issue.
Additional Information
© 2006 Optical Society of America Received 14 October 2005; revised 22 May 2006; accepted 1 June 2006; posted 6 June 2006 (Doc. ID 65355). The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Thirty Meter Telescope partner institutions. They are the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), the California Institute of Technology, and the University of California. This work was supported, as well, by the Canada Foundation for Innovation; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by AURA under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation; the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation; and the National Research Council of Canada. This work has benefited from the comments and constructive criticism of Terry Mast (University of California, Santa Cruz) and two anonymous reviewers. Various people were instrumental in collecting and interpreting the data used herein. In particular, Myung Cho conducted much of the early analysis of the Gemini data, and Tait Pottebaum conducted the M2 flow-field wind-tunnel test.Attached Files
Published - MACao06.pdf
Files
| Name | Size | Download all |
|---|---|---|
|
md5:78c9a2397d5a19d98b83e3384c7179c7
|
1.8 MB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 6048
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:MACao06
- Created
-
2006-11-15Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2019-10-02Created from EPrint's last_modified field