ELECTROMECHANICS ENGINEERS WIN THE 2010 BARCO/VIK PRIZE

The high-tech company Barco organizes the annual Barco Awards together with the Flemish Chamber of Engineers (Vlaamse Ingenieurskamer or VIK). They are amongst the most prestigious and most coveted engineering awards in the country. They are granted to master’s theses in the areas in which Barco is active: imaging technology, visualization solutions, optics, and photonics. In 2010, Bart Blockmans and Wim Put, two Electromechanics alumni from Group T, were amongst the lucky ones.

Bart Blockmans and Wim Put, two Electromechanics engineers of Group T and winners of the Barco/VIK Prize 2010.

Mercator Telescope
Finite Element Analysis of the Mercator Telescope’s Primary Mirror is the title of the prize-winning work. There may not be a spontaneous association between telescopes and Electromechanics engineers, but the tale is different in the case of Bart and Wim. When the Physics and Astronomy department from the K.U. Leuven Science & Technology Group appealed to upcoming master students through Group T’s website to realize a project that was linked to astronomy, Bart and Wim immediately jumped at the opportunity. Prof. Guido Ceulemans, manager of Group T's Energy & Technology Unit, was approached as supervisor. Paul Bielen from the Physics and Astronomy Department at the K.U.Leuven was prepared to act as the co-supervisor.

Deflection
The object of study was the Mercator telescope on the island of La Palma. “Not only do K.U. Leuven researchers use it, but also scientists from Switzerland and Spain regularly carry out measurements with it. There is also an identical copy of it in Chili: the Euler telescope,” Wim explains. “The size and the weight of the mirror offer many benefits for the observation of the cosmos and everything in it but there is also a drawback,” Bart continues. “Because of gravity, the mirror bends under its own weight—enough to affect the image quality and render the measurements less accurate. Our assignment was to find a solution to this problem.”

Mathematical formulas
“We opted for a finite element analysis to deal with this problem,” Bart relates. “This allows you to calculate the deflection very accurately.” “We do not correct the images themselves,” Wim clarifies. “The focal point is the positioning of the mirror support points. By changing their position as well as the pressure they exert it is possible to negate the deflection and obtain quality images and measurements again.” The computer software provided by Group T was then coupled to a pre- and postprocessor developed by both winners.

Applicable everywhere
“Our proposed improvement of the mirror support can be used for all large telescopes in the world,” Bart confirms. Experiments showed that the image degradation predicted by Bart and Wim’s software are correct. Consequently, they are very happy that their method will be applied to both the Mercator and the Euler telescopes.

Implementation at Barco?
Traditionally, the Barco/VIK awards target Electronics or ICT engineers. But apparently, Barco is examining whether pneumatically steered mirrors can also be implemented in the large projectors the company produces. Perhaps the technology developed by Bart and Wim could help this along.
 

• Read the details behind Wim and Bart's finite element analysis and the technology they developed in Group T's newsmagazine Interview.