The ring beam is manufactured in 6 sections. Bolted and torqued together with 1-1/4" SHCS, the top ground surface has to be perfectly flat without gaps at each joint. This requires hours and hours of millwright work matching and scraping to within a few arch seconds! The ring beam is also leveled to the earth perfectly. This component is what the 300,000 pound OSS rotates on floating on a 0.015" thick film of oil under 2,000 psi hydraulic pressure. The excess oil of the hydrostatic bearings is channeled into overflow oil gutters that are mounted along the top circumference of the ring beam. You can see a section of a gutter in the foreground. This unique bearing design makes the rotating mass virtually frictionless which makes the astronomers very happy.
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