Poster details
» Design Considerations of Polishing Lap for Computer-Controlled Cylindrical Polishing Process
Presenter: Gufran Sayeed Khan
The future X-ray observatory missions, such as International X-ray Observatory (IXO), require grazing incidence replicated optics of extremely large collecting area (3 m2) in combination with angular resolution of < 5 arcsec half-power diameter. The achievable resolution of a mirror shell depends ultimately on the quality of the cylindrical mandrels from which the mirror shells are being replicated. Mid-spatial-frequency axial figure error is a dominant contributor in the error budget of the mandrel. This paper presents our efforts to develop a deterministic cylindrical polishing process in order to keep the residual mid-spatial-frequency axial figure errors to a minimum. Simulation studies have been performed to optimize the operational parameters as well as the polishing lap configuration. By using the optimized operational parameters and lap configuration obtained from the simulation studies, a cylindrical mandrel has been polished on a newly developed computer-controlled cylindrical polishing machine. We report our first experimental results on this mandrel and discuss plans for further improvement in the polishing process.
Coauthors:- Mikhail Gubarev
- William Arnold
- Brian Ramsey