Material Removed when Figuring a Sphere into a Paraboloid

Steve Koehler This note derives the exact formula for the amount of glass removed when figuring a spherical mirror into a paraboloid. In particular, it derives the result that the least material is removed if the 70.7% zone is left untouched, and both the edge and center are lowered. It is assumed that figuring the mirror will remove different amounts of glass at different radii, and that if a minimum amount of glass is to be removed, there will be some radius where no glass is removed. Thus, the target paraboloid wil be a surface that is lower than the starting sphere at all points, except one or more rings, where the two surfaces touch. It should be obvious that the sphere and paraboloid must be radially tangent where they touch. If they werent, we would violate the requirement that glass can only be removed, not added, during figuring.

Conventions
For simplicity, I will use cylindrical coordinates for the sphere and paraboloid. Points in cylindrical coordinates normally are referenced by rho, theta, and z. Because the sphere and paraboloid are rotationally symmetric around the z axis, theta is not needed. For simplicity in typing in the equations, I am going to switch variable names, and use x instead of rho, and y instead of z. The following list summarizes the symbols used in the formulas: Radial coordinate: x Height coordinate: y Radius of curvature of sphere: r Radius of curvature of paraboloid: r Radius of tangent point of sphere and paraboloid: a Radius of optic: R Conic constant: sc Height difference between sphere and paraboloid: d Volume of material removed in figuring: v

Formula for the Sphere

The basic formula for the height of a conic with radius of curvature r and conic constant sc whose vertex is at the origin is

This is the starting point of all the derivations. For a sphere (sc=0), this simplifies to

Formula for the Paraboloid

For a paraboloid (sc=-1), the general formula for a conic simplifies to

However, the target paraboloid will likely have a different radius of curvature than the sphere, and its vertex may not lie on the origin. The following more general formula must be used, where r is a new radius of curvature and b is the y intercept:

The values of r and b can be determined from the tangency condition, i.e., that the paraboloid and sphere touch at radius x=a, and that they have the same radial slope at that point. First, we solve for r. The radial slope of the sphere at radius x is

The radial slope of the paraboloid at radius x is

Equating these, and evaluating a x=a, we find that

To solve for b, we note that the paraboloid has to go through the same point as the sphere at x=a. So,

A simple rearrangement gives the value of b. Plugging these back into the equation for yp we get the following formula for the paraboloid:

Note that the paraboloid has a radius of curvature different than that of the sphere:

Check that Material is Only Removed

Before proceeding, it needs to be checked that yp is strictly less than ys. In other words, that material is only removed, not added, when figuring the paraboloid. This can be proven, as follows. The difference in height between the sphere and paraboloid is:

This can be rearranged in the following form:

This is easily seen as strictly positive, because the numerator is a square and the denominator is a positive square root, since it comes from the positive square roots in the formulas for ys and yp.

Volume of Material Removed

The volume material removed can be calculated by integrating d in shells from radius 0 to R.

A straightforward integration of the summands gives

This can be simplified, somewhat, as

And, evaluating the definite integral gives the volume of material removed as a function of the tangent radius a:

I checked this formula numerically, by comparing it to a discrete integration using the original formulas for ys and yp.

Radius for Minimum Volume Removal

The radius of tangency for minimum volume removal can be calculated by finding the point where the derivative of dv/da is zero.

The zeros are where

and

. The later has the value

, or about .707.