The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has started to develop the Integrated Model (IM) for OWL by applying software tools, which were already used for an IM of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer. The OWL IM focuses onto model reliability and computational efficiency. The former is taken into consideration by a step-wise implementation and the usage of both tested tools and validated sub-models. The validation methods contain plausibility checks with hand calculations, experiments, measurements or comparison with other computational models. The latter is addressed by considering the sparsity pattern of the equations governing the structural dynamics and the control loops and by exerting advanced model reduction techniques for the dynamic model of the telescope structure, which especially try to avoid the loss of local structural flexibility due to a modal truncation. Different condensation methods are shown and their performance is evaluated. The paper shows the architecture of the integrated model with its components such as telescope structures, optics, control loops and disturbance models for wind load, seismic ground acceleration and atmospheric turbulence. Results illustrating the capability of the model approach are presented.

Date Published: 22 June 2006
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 6271, Modeling, Systems Engineering, and Project Management for Astronomy II, 627101 (22 June 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.672963

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6271:
Modeling, Systems Engineering, and Project Management for Astronomy II
Martin J. Cullum; George Z. Angeli, Editor(s)