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Effect of the reflector system thermal behavior on the pointing accuracy of large radio telescopes

2023; SPIE; Volume: 9; Issue: 02 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1117/1.jatis.9.2.028002

2329-4221

Shanxiang Wei, Deqing Kong, Fangwei Jin, Bin Xiong, Cong Lei, Binlan Wang,

Laser and Thermal Forming Techniques

The thermal behavior of the reflector system under solar radiation has great effects on the pointing accuracy of large radio telescopes. To estimate the dynamic pointing error of large radio telescopes caused by the thermal behavior of the reflector system under solar radiation, the nonuniform temperature field and the thermal deformation of the Wuqing 70 m radio telescope (WRT70) on three specific sunny days are first simulated by finite-element (FE) software. Then the pose variations of the reflector system are calculated equivalently based on the FE thermal-structural coupling analysis of the reflector system. Finally, the dynamic pointing errors of the WRT70 on three specific sunny days, caused by the thermal behavior of the reflector system, are estimated according to the beam deviation factor. The research results show that the rotations of the main reflector and the offsets of the subreflector on sunny days have great influences on the pointing error of large radio telescopes. In addition, the pointing error caused by the rotations of the main reflector and the pointing error caused by the offsets of the subreflector cancel each other out, but the pointing error caused by the rotations of the main reflector plays a dominant role. Furthermore, the effect of the thermal behavior of the reflector system on the pointing accuracy of large radio telescopes is less than the influence of the thermal behavior of the alidade. These findings could provide valuable references for the compensation of dynamic pointing errors of large radio telescopes.