Thermal control analysis of a primary mirror for large-aperture telescope

Extraneous thermal loads on the primary mirror of a large-aperture telescope directly influence the optical performance of the telescope through temperature gradients within the mirror and thermal boundary layer at the face sheet. In this paper, we propose a new thermal control system consisting of a flushing and sucking system for eliminating the excessive heat of a primary mirror. First, a 2.8 m-aperture lightweighted primary mirror is fabricated. Second, a thermo-optic analysis using finite element analysis is conducted in natural and forced convection. Finally, the optical performance denoted by Zernike polynomials with and without our proposed thermal control system is evaluated and examined. The comparative results reveal that the image quality of the primary mirror in forced convection is significantly enhanced with obvious reduction of optical surface distortion, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of our proposed thermal control system.