I modeled an apparatus to channel light into a series of detectors for an experiment
a professor was working on in the Physics department. At the base is a 10cm x 10cm
calorimeter of 47 x 47 fiber optic fibers. The light coming out of these fibers needed
to be funneled together into a 5 x 5 array of detectors. Multiple different variations
of parts were designed with differing wall thicknesses and heights to accomplish this.
One concept was intended to be injection molded as a single part, with an interior
mirror finish. Another concept was to laser cut pieces of mirrored stainless steel
and glue them together into separate “towers”. I made all of the parts in SOLIDWORKS
with a lot of lofts and different configurations (as 47 doesn’t split into 5 nicely,
the groupings of fiber optic fibers had to be differing sizes).
Here are some images from SOLIDWORKS:
And here are some images from the first prototype:
