Abstract:
In order to take full advantage of the excellent seeing conditions in the Dome A area, it is planned to mount the Antarctic telescope on a 15m high tower and use a lightweight membrane dome. In this paper, we study the effects of wind loads on the telescope's observing environment under the action of the tower and the membrane dome, and analyze the changes of wind speed, turbulent kinetic energy distribution and optical path difference around the telescope under the action of the steady state wind of 10 m·s
-1 at different wind angles, azimuthal rotations, and lens tube rotations by means of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method. The effects of the wind screen on the modification of wind speed and turbulent kinetic energy and the temperature rise are also investigated. The results show that the wind speed and turbulent kinetic energy distribution around the tower and the dome are not sensitive to the change of wind direction. The turbulence and wind speed distributions near the telescope in the windward direction are better than those in the leeward direction. When the wind speed is 10 m·s
-1, the wind speed decreases to 1/3 to 1/4 of the incoming wind speed at the height of 3 m from the wind screen,and the average temperature rise near the telescope is 0.044 K.