[ATM] Second Thoughts on Mirror Support

[mdholm at telerama.com (Mark Holm)]

Stuart Hutchins wrote:

>
>The original poster, Steve Houlihan, has the mirror cell with the ball-joint
>pivots behind the whiffle triangles, not a solid plate.  Therefore his
>forces (minus ball-joint sticktion) will be transmitted right through the
>three compliant RTV pads to produce uneven support forces at the mirror.
>These forces can be easily estimated as I outlined in my first post.  Then
>PLOP can show how serious the deformation is.
>
Umm, yes I guess you are right at least to a first approximation, the 
forces will be transmitted through the RTV..  I'm not sure about using 
Plop to model it though.  I don't know of a mode where you can put 
arbitrary forces on the supports in Plop.  It usually assumes that the 
weight of the mirror is the only source of primary forces.  Maybe I am 
missing something though.

Mark Holm