Modeling of nonuniform thermal deformation and high thermal stability design method for precision instruments

Abstract

Abstract Structural deformations caused by environmental temperature changes are the main reason affecting the accuracy of high-precision instruments. A model of nonuniform thermal deformation is established. In addition, a new high thermal stability design method based on the developed model is proposed in this paper. The mechanism of nonuniform thermal deformation is investigated based on the principle of molecular dynamics. A mathematical model of nonuniform thermal deformation is established through the Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator. The proposed design method is applied to a laser collimation system. Stability contrast experiments for the original as well as the optimized laser collimation systems are also carried out. The stability of the optimized laser collimation systems is improved by approximately 60% with a temperature change of 10 °C. The experimental results indicate that the established model of nonuniform thermal deformation and the high thermal stability design method are effective and inexpensive, and can be applied to improve the thermal stability of other precision instruments.