Telescope Baffle Mass Simulator Design Using Shape Optimization

A case study of an application of Shape optimization techniques in the design of a mass simulator has been presented. A simple mass Simulator is to be designed as a replacement for a Telescope Baffle Mass for testing purposes. The simulator is made of simple plate structures like flat plates and cylindrical plates joined together. The overall mass, location of center of gravity and first few modes of the simulator need to be close to the Telescope Baffle, it is replacing. This ensures that the Simulator is a good replacement for the Telescope Baffle both in statics and dynamics performance. Shape Optimization techniques using approximate direct linearization method of MSC/Nastran software have been used to fine-tune the baseline Simulator design to achieve target properties of mass, cg, frequencies, etc.