E-ELT vibration modeling, simulation, and budgeting

Abstract

The E-ELT dynamical modeling toolkit is used extensively to understand the effect of vibrations from observatory equipments on the final performance of the telescope. The dynamical and control modeling toolkit uses the finite element model of the telescope structure and mirror units, the optical sensitivity and knowledge of the wavefront control correction capability to estimate the transmission of vibration from potential vibrational sources to the wavefront error. In addition, it helps i) to identify the sensitive optical units and sensitive vibrational sources and the frequency intervals they might affect most the wavefront error, ii) to perform design trade-offs, and iii) to derive subsystem specification requirements. In this paper, a vibration budgeting approach for the E-ELT using the modeling toolkit is presented.