Balance pan damping using tuned sloshing liquids

Abstract

This paper describes a new method to damp out balance pan oscillations even when the balance is operated in vacuum. The key is to tune the wavelength of the damping liquid, which resides in a sealed container attached above the pan, to the natural frequencies expected in the pan operation. Both NIST and LNE are investigating the practical application of this damping approach in our respective watt balance experiments [1,2].