Primary mirror segmentation studies for the Thirty Meter Telescope
2008
The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project, a partnership between ACURA, Caltech, and the University of California, is
currently developing a 30-meter diameter optical telescope. The primary mirror will be composed of 492 low expansion
glass segments. Each segment is hexagonal, nominally measuring 1.44m across the corners. Because the TMT primary
mirror is curved (i.e. not flat) and segmented with uniform 2.5mm nominal gaps, the resulting hexagonal segment
outlines cannot all be identical. All segmentation approaches studied result in some combination of shape and size
variations. These variations range from fractions of a millimeter to several millimeters. Segmentation schemes for the
TMT primary mirror are described in some detail. Various segmentation approaches are considered, with the goal being
to minimize various measures of shape variation between segments, thereby reducing overall design complexity and
cost. Two radial scaling formulations are evaluated for their effectiveness at achieving these goals. Optimal tuning of
these formulations and detailed statistics of the resulting segment shapes are provided. Finally, we present the rationale
used for selecting the preferred segmentation approach for TMT.
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