H2020 opticon project overview: Investigating the use of additive manufacturing for the design and build of multi-functional integrated astronomical components

Additive manufacturing (AM) methods and post processing techniques are promising methodologies considering that it is now possible to print in a wide variety of materials using processes much refined from those originally available twenty years ago. To date the uptake of AM in Astronomy is relatively low compared to other application areas,...

A new standard for predicting lung injury inflicted by Friedlander blast waves

An important blast injury mechanism is the rupture of the lungs and the gastrointestinal tract. In explosives safety studies and threat analysis the empirical model of Bowen is often used to quantify this mechanism. The original model predicts the lethality for a person in front of a reflecting surface caused by simple Friedlander blast waves....

Thermo-mechanical behavior of retro-reflector and resulting parallelism error of laser beams for Wendelstein 7-X interferometer

A 10 channels interferometer will be used in the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) for plasma density control and density profile tracking with laser beams passing through the plasma. Due to complex shape of non-planar modular coils and divertor structure, there are no large poloidally opposite ports on the plasma vessel (PV). Therefore 10 in-vessel Corner...

Thermo-mechanical analysis of retro-reflectors for interferometry and polarimetry in W7-X

The stellarator Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) is presently under construction at the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik in Greifswald, Germany. The plasma density profile will be measured by two-colour interferometry where for each line of sight through the plasma the phase shifts of two far-infrared laser beams are compared. Due to the 3D shape of...