Manufacturing Methods and Technology for Production Hot Forging of Alkali Halide Lenses

摘要

All of the objectives of the Manufacturing Methods and Technology Program were met. Low cost, readily available KBr single crystals were hot forged-to-shape with tooling and equipment which can modestly produce 100 lenses in one, eight-hour production shift. This rate is at least six times the original goal of 300 per month. A semi-automatic, computer process control system designed and built by Honeywell was used for this purpose. No optical finishing operations were required to meet the optical specifications established for this lens design. In addition, the visible light transmission of KBr should make its optical alignment in the IR-imager easier. It is estimated that the lower cost of this lens would save the government about $300,000 per year over that where a ZnSe lens is used. (Author)