Low-Drag Infrared Dome

The tangent ogive dome was developed to reduce drag during high-speed flight. In addition to the reduced drag during flight, the aerodynamic shape along with the hard ceramic material, such as polycrystalline alumina (PCA), minimizes the threat of damage due to solid or liquid airborne particles. The goal of this SBIR Phase I is to incorporate the best available metrology and finishing methods to produce a precisely figured glass (or other government specified material) ogive dome. We plan to implement ultrasonic assisted microgrinding, high speed VIBE polishing and deterministic sub-aperture polishing to accomplish this goal. Ultrasonic assisted generation will maximize removal rates and minimize sub-surface damage and tool wear compared to conventional optical generation methods. This step will be even more important for hard ceramic materials versus glass in Phase II. The innovative Optimax VIBE process is a full-aperture, conformal polishing process designed to incorporate high frequency and random motion to rapidly remove grinding damage in a VIBE pre-polish step. At Optimax we utilize many different commercial deterministic sub-aperture polishing platforms. One limitation of these is grain decoration of polycrystalline ceramic materials resulting in scatter sites. We plan to modify one of these platforms using Optimax technology to allow for sub-aperture figure correction without grain decoration.