Stresses in flexure pendulums for gravitational wave detectors

✍ Scribed by L. Ju; D.G. Blair

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 548 KB
• Volume: 256
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0375-9601
• DOI: 10.1016/s0375-9601(99)00185-1

✦ Synopsis

We show that in flexures for low loss pendulums, surface stresses and boundary condition can cause unacceptable stress build up. We compare stress distributions in wires and membranes. The absence of violin string resonances and compatibility with high Q-factor sapphire test masses makes the niobium membrane flexure advantageous although the pendulum Q-factor does not exceed that of all fused silica pendulums.