| 35 | 35 | || '''17.11.2017[[BR]](10hrs, HdA)''' || '''Hans J. Kaercher (MT Mechatronics GmbH)''' || '''Thinking in Forces [[BR]](as a Tool for designing Telescope Structures)'''[[BR]][[BR]]What is a force? One can start reflecting about it and philosophers have written whole books about this question. Ludwig Buechner, a „middle-class materialist“ of the 19th century wrote in his book „Kraft und Stoff“: „Kraft kann nichts weiter sein als eine Eigenschaft der Materie“, or „Kräfte lassen sich nicht mitteilen, sondern nur wecken“, and in this sense he is obviously with Isaac Newton, who is the originator of "thinking in forces" following his famous observation of the falling apple. Much later this led to the special engineering branch "structural mechanics", which was originally applied to bridge and building construction, lateron even in the more sophisticated branch of aerospace engineering.[[BR]][[BR]]„Thinking in forces“ in the form of "graphical structural analysis" became a branch of engineering in the middle of the 19th century. This enables to think in both the "physical space" and the "force space", i.e. besides a design drawing also a force diagram is required. This is similar to projective geometry, where also dual spaces exist. Hans Kaercher will explain this approach in three examples:[[BR]]1) designing reflectors for radio telescopes;[[BR]]2) designing primary mirror supports for large optical telescopes;[[BR]]3) designing tracking mounts for large optical elements.[[BR]]These examples will be discussed in the framework of design contributions to different telescope projects, like e.g. the radio telescope LMT/GTM, the IR telescope SOFIA and the optical telescope ELT.[[BR]][[BR]]Presentation: German[[BR]][https://svn.mpia.de/trac/gulli/att/raw-attachment/wiki/AlteVortraege2017S2/2017-11-17_DenkenInKraeften.pdf Slides: English][[BR]]Questions: German, English || |
