Manufacturing simulation for precision optical fabrication of large mirror: AN end-to-end process simulation

This paper discusses a study that was performed to model and simulate the operation of an end-to-end optical fabrication process. Two models dealing with facesheet and lightweighted mirrors are presented. When provided with proper process parameters and distributions, the models offer an avenue to evaluate the aggregate performance of an end-to-end optical fabrication process such as substrate material process, blank generation, aspherizing, fine grinding, polishing, and coating. The performance measures generated by the model include production capacity, system bottleneck process(es), process cost, and resource utilization. The models provide the media for an analyst to ask ‘what if’ type questions to assess the resource requirements for various types of mirrors under various system configurations in order to achieve desired production goals such as 100 square meters per year. The models are implemented using SIMAN, a FORTRAN based simulation language with several modeling facilities, including FORTRAN interface and process animation capabilities. The modeling flexibility in SIMAN allows the user to model special problem situations that are not captured by the usual system built-in routines.