FAQs
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Random FAQs
- An internet search should lead you to companies which sell such items.
- A force measurement system is made up of a transducer and associated instrumentation.
- Radiation thermometers measure the thermal energy emitted by a source and relate this to its temperature by means of the Planck law of radiation. They consist of optics (generally lenses) to collect and focus the emitted energy onto a detector.
- A thermometer is a device which has a measurable property which changes with temperature.
- The UK National Standard Kilogram is kept in a basement vault at NPL. It is stored in an air-tight enclosure, only exposed to the air via two micropore filters.
- See our Good Practice Guidance Note.
- Thermocouples are the most common sensors in industrial use due to the fact that they are small, simple, rugged and of low cost. They consist of two dissimilar conductors (wires) joined at a junction and contained in an insulator.
- MSF is the three-letter call sign used to designate the UK’s 60 kHz standard-frequency and time signal.
- A blackbody source is an ideal, 'Planckian', radiator, i.e it emits thermal (visible and infrared) energy whose intensity at a given wavelength and temperature is given by the Planck Law of radiation.
All FAQs
- No, they are not. The internationally recognised SI unit for pressure is the pascal, abbreviated to Pa, and this is the unit realised by the primary measurement standards in the world's national metrology institutes to provide traceability for pressure measurements.
- The International Prototype Kilogram is not perfectly stable (its mass changes with time), the amount it changes cannot be known perfectly (there is no 'perfect' reference against which to judge it) and the values of the national copies cannot be monitored at the highest level of accuracy without being compared directly with it.
- In some situations.
- The most accurate barometers are indeed the mercury primary barometers used at national measurement institutes. Most barometers, though, are secondary instruments rather than primary ones and when considering these it is not correct to say that those based on a mercury column are invariably more accurate than those that are based on an alternative principle.
- Yes there are - some are listed here.
- The time at which summer time begins and ends is given in the relevant EU Directive and UK Statutory Instrument as 1 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
- Up to a point yes, but unless a weight is of suitable design and material and in appropriate condition it will not be possible to give it a meaningful calibration and it would certainly be a waste of money.
- Give the weight a general inspection to check its construction, surface finish and the suitability of its magnetic properties.
- A number of factors need to be taken into account when considering sources for calibrating radiation thermometers.
- Yes - Saturated (or unsaturated) salt solutions, and certain other chemicals, can be used to generate an environment of a particular relative humidity in an enclosed space.





