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The Damping of Balances

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Abstract

The paper gives a survey of the history of damping methods for balances. Representation on Egyptian drawings demonstrate that the person performing the weighing shortened the measuring time by holding the suspension cords and touching the beam. By means of delimiters, the Romans constricted the deflection amplitudes. In the 19th century, the movements of precision balances were damped with a brush. For analytical balances, locking mechanism were developed, often combined with levers lifting the weighing scales and the beam in order to relieve the knife-edges. Half-arresting was used to curtail weighings. Air damping was invented by Arzberger in 1875, and eddy current damping by Marek in 1906. In electronic balances, lag, lead and filter elements and absorptive attenuators are used. For digital balances, the fast-reacting nullification of eddy signals is applied.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Mess- und Regelungstechnik der Technischen Universität, D-10787, Berlin

    Th. Gast & H. R. Jenemann

  2. Institut für Anorganische Chemie und Analytische Chemie der Johannes, Gutenberg-Universität, D-55099, Mainz, Germany

    E. Robens

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  1. Th. Gast
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  2. H. R. Jenemann
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  3. E. Robens
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Gast, T., Jenemann, H.R. & Robens, E. The Damping of Balances. Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry 55, 347–355 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010182610908

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