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.