Alex Meyer was born and raised on Maui. After ending his military service, he attended University of Hawaii at Manoa for three years. Currently at UH: Maui College, Alex is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Engineering Technology. After completing his degree Alex intends to seek out a masters degree program in his field of study. Outside of academia he enjoys robotics, classic role playing games, fantasy novels, and collecting polyhedral dice.
Home Island: Maui
Institution when accepted: University of Hawaii at Maui College
Akamai Project: Determining the vibration budget for the CRYO-NIRSP Compressor
Project Site: Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST)
Mentors: Bill McBride, Mackenzie Stratton
Project Abstract:
No other solar telescope in the world even comes close to the resolving power of DKIST, which will be capable of less than 14 milli-arcseconds of image resolution. Because of the sensitivity of the optics, even subterranean magma flow will affect image quality. Cryo-NIRSP is a piece of optical equipment that has a 7 ft compressor rack, which will undoubtedly introduce an immense amount of vibration into the structure. I have developed a vibration model that correlates the rigid body motion of the compressor directly into image degradation. This model was used to understand the vibrating nature of the compressor rack and transform it into image motion. Accelerometers and force sensors detected vibration displacements at a dozen different locations on the instrumentation lab. Through the use of computational software, data was collected in the time domain and heavily filtered. It was transformed into the frequency domain and plotted against the image degradation. The projection has successfully shown a predictable correlation between vibrations at a given force and the image degradation. This report analyzed a single location on the telescope, but over 30 high risk areas around the site will be examined. The data obtained from these measurements will help mitigate vibration and improve overall image resolution.