The coude azimuth carousels mechanical design utilizes a load sharing system via adjustable “truck” bearings to help account for uneven load distribution and varying stiffness across the structure.
The adjustability of the bearings are from a wedge mechanism that sits between the coude platfrom and the truck block.
The load of the coude structure is spread across 96 truck bearings with the following arrangement and spacing.
To identify the peak loads on each truck bearing a weigh station/load sensing system was implemented to verify operating and performance requirements, though currently the system is used for preventive maintenance.
The load sensing system basically consist of a load cell sensor situated under the rail and connected to a charge amplifier. The sensor is a piezo transducer where it produces a charge due to forces acted upon it, while the charge amplifier converts the charge into a usable voltage output.
As an on-going effort to increase reliability the load sensing system was extended from a stand alone system to an integrated facility system. Doing this allows some level of repeatability and a traceability to the data captured.