THE NEW WATT BALANCE EXPERIMENT AT METAS

H. Baumann, A. Eichenberger, B. Jeckelmann, Ch. Beguin, R. Clavel, F. Cosandier, D. Reber, D. Tommasini

Abstract

The kilogram is the last unit of the international system (SI) still based on a material artifact, the international prototype of the kilogram (IPK). The comparisons made in the last hundred years have clearly revealed a long term relative drift between the IPK and a set of copies kept under similar conditions. Since the long term stability is one of the major conditions set on the SI base units, this situation is no longer satisfactory and a new definition of the mass unit becomes a priority for the metrology community. A promising route towards a new definition based on fundamental constants is given by the watt balance experiment which links the mass unit to the Plank constant h.

Keywords

kilogram, Planck constant h, system of units, watt balance

Download

IMEKO-WC-2012-TC7-O11.pdf

DOI

-

IMEKO TC

TC7 - Measurement Science

Back to the proceedings