Many aspects must be considered in the design of telescope enclosures. One critical aspect is the floor sensitivity to movement. The floor moves due to floor-foundation interaction, floor-wall interaction, soil-floor interaction, and internal enclosure loads. This paper presents the details of the design of an environmental enclosure floor having minimum rotation due internal laboratory equipment loads, which can have a significant effect on the deformation of the floor. Floor analysis is presented by finite element methods. An example of a floor design is presented in the context of a future Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer (NPOI) environmental enclosure.

Date Published: 17 September 2007
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 6665, New Developments in Optomechanics, 66650J (17 September 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.732725

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6665:
New Developments in Optomechanics
Alson E. Hatheway, Editor(s)