Gravity acceleration changes in Russian stations of comparing absolute gravimeters

The article deals with the study of changes in the values of gravitational accelerations at the Russian comparison’s sites of the absolute gravimeters “Pulkovo”, “Svetloye” and “Zvenigorod” for the years of 2007–2013. A significant increase of the values instead of the expected decrease was obtained. The authors make an attempt to reveal the reasons for that basing on the calculation of the change in the gravitational field using the Bouguer and Faye corrections. The estimates do not fully explain the phenomenon, according neither to gravimeters nor to satellite data. At the sites of “Pulkovo” and “Svetloye”, the measured changes in the values differ from the calculated ones by +5,7 and 6,6 μGal, which significantly exceeds the errors of the absolute gravimeters. The change of the gravity varies from satellites GRACE data by 9,4 μGal at the “Zvenigorod” site. This may be due to local hydrological reasons. Determining the causes of gravity changes at the absolute stations of gravity network is an urgent task.

Preliminary Study of Probolinggo Active Fault in East Java Based on Gravity Method

The Gravity Method based on TOPEX satellite data is a one of geophysical method which from satellite observations. The gravity method investigate the gravitational field from one to another observation point. The principle of this method has the ability to distinguish the mass material density from its environment, so that the subsurface structure can be identified. In this research, gravity method is used to identify subsurface structures that are suspected of Probolinggo Fault and identify the rock lithology. From TOPEX we get free air anomaly and then applied the correction process to obtain Complete Bouguer Anomaly (CBA) value. The CBA value is processed interpolation to create CBA map, and then the map is filtered by butterworth to obtain regional and residual maps. The value of high gravity acceleration is 0.076 - 19.74 mGal indicating compact rocks. Meanwhile, based on the residual anomaly map, the value of smaller gravity acceleration is -0.92 - 0.9 mGal indicates lower compacting rocks with smaller mass. The gravity acceleration contrast on the residual anomaly, on the north side of fault line (0.12 mGal to 0.45 mGal) and on the south side (-0.92 mGal to -0.043 mGal), is interpreted as normal fault. Furthermore, 3D modelling shows density value less than 2 gr/cm3 we can interpret as pyroclastic fall, in between 2 gr/cm3 until 2.4 gr/cm3 is sandstone and more than 2.4 gr/cm3 is igneous rock such as andesit. 2D slicing modelling show presence the shear fault, so we can suspect this area have oblique fault with west-east direction.

Balancing inverted pendulum cart on inclines using accelerometers

The balance of inverted pendulum on inclined surfaces is the precursor to their control in unstructured environments. Researchers have devised control algorithms with feedback from contact (encoders - placed at the pendulum joint) and non-contact (gyroscopes, tilt) sensors. We present feedback control of Inverted Pendulum Cart (IPC) on variable inclines using non-contact sensors and a modified error function. The system is in the state of equilibrium when it is not accelerating and not falling over (rotational equilibrium). This is achieved when the pendulum is aligned along the gravity vector. The control feedback is obtained from non-contact sensors comprising of a pair of accelerometers placed on the inverted pendulum and one on the cart. The proposed modified error function is composed of the dynamic (non-gravity) acceleration of the pendulum and the velocity of the cart. We prove that the system is in equilibrium when the modified error is zero. We present algorithm to calculate the dynamic acceleration and angle of the pendulum, and incline angle using accelerometer readings. Here, the cart velocity and acceleration are assumed to be proportional to the motor angular velocity and acceleration. Thereafter, we perform simulation using noisy sensors to illustrate the balance of IPC on surfaces with unknown inclination angles using PID feedback controller with saturated motor torque, including valley profile that resembles a downhill, flat and uphill combination. The successful control of the system using the proposed modified error function and accelerometer feedback argues for future design of controllers for unstructured and unknown environments using all-accelerometer feedback.

Sensitivity Analysis of Influencing Factors of Supercritical Methane Flow and Heat Transfer in a U-Tube

Due to the existence of a Dean vortex in a U-tube, the flow and heat transfer process of supercritical methane is complex, and its thermophysical property are greatly influenced by different factors. Based on computational fluid dynamics theory, the numerical simulation of the turbulent flow and heat transfer characteristics of supercritical methane in a U-tube with an inner diameter of 10 mm and a radius of curvature of 27 mm carried out by using the finite volume method. On the basis of verifying the reliability of the model, the influences of inlet mass flux (G), heat flux on the tube wall boundary (q), pressure on the outlet (P), and gravity acceleration factors (g) on heat transfer characteristics were analyzed. The calculation results show that the sensitivity of the effects of G, q, P, and g on the heat transfer coefficient is, from large to small, in the order of P, G, g, and q. Compared with a horizontal straight tube, a U-tube can significantly improve heat transfer in the elbow part, but the presence of the elbow reduces heat transfer in the subsequent straight pipe section. The research in this paper has significance as a reference for the construction of the LNG gasification process.

Quantitative Comparison between the Smartphone Based Experiments for the Gravity Acceleration Measurement at Home

Smartphones are currently proposed as potential portable laboratories to perform a wide variety of physical experiments for teaching purpose. However, the frequent lack of clarity about the ease of replication of the experiments and on their accuracy often limits their effective use. In this work we deeply compare several smartphone-based experiments to determine the gravity acceleration g by only using cheap materials easily available at home. The experiment and the data analysis complexity are progressively increased, starting from fast and easy to replicate methods. The advantages and possible limits of all the methods are deeply discussed in order to allow an evaluation of the most suitable method for any particular teaching scenario.

Enigmatic Gravity Effects Observed during Solar Eclipses. Their Analyse by Quantum Model of Inertia and Gravitation

Foucault long pendulums, with spherical suspended mass, show Earth rotation by the constant velocity drift of their oscillation plane. Maurice Allais used a short, 84 centimeters pendulum, with a suspended bronze disc mass. He recorded its oscillation plane drift velocity, during solar eclipses, in 1954 and 1959. Both times, he noticed an anomalous drift of the oscillation plane. Several authors confirmed the effect, during next solar eclipses, with other types of pendulums. Then a group of Geophysicists, from the Science Academy of China, used an accurate digital gravimeter to measure Earth Gravity acceleration during March 09, 1997 solar eclipse. Their gravimeter recorded two drops of Earth Gravity acceleration (respectively 5.02 and 7.7 µ Gals) before and during first and last contacts of the Moon disc. However there was no acceleration drop during eclipse totality. Same phenomena were confirmed later, during next solar eclipses, with the same gravimeter. No classical causes for these facts were found, since modern gravimeters take care of temperature and atmospheric pressure variations. We analyse the effect of Moon rotation, and of solar Corona mass, in the frame of our Quantum model of Inertia and of Gravitation. The model predicts that Moon / Earth Gravity acceleration changes, when the Moon direction is close to the Sun one, as observed from the gravimeter place. That phenomenon should be tied to Quantum fluctuations dispersion by matter. Recorded measurements confirm that interpretation.

Gravity Control-Based Data Augmentation Technique for Improving VR User Activity Recognition

The neural-network-based human activity recognition (HAR) technique is being increasingly used for activity recognition in virtual reality (VR) users. The major issue of a such technique is the collection large-scale training datasets which are key for deriving a robust recognition model. However, collecting large-scale data is a costly and time-consuming process. Furthermore, increasing the number of activities to be classified will require a much larger number of training datasets. Since training the model with a sparse dataset can only provide limited features to recognition models, it can cause problems such as overfitting and suboptimal results. In this paper, we present a data augmentation technique named gravity control-based augmentation (GCDA) to alleviate the sparse data problem by generating new training data based on the existing data. The benefits of the symmetrical structure of the data are that it increased the number of data while preserving the properties of the data. The core concept of GCDA is two-fold: (1) decomposing the acceleration data obtained from the inertial measurement unit (IMU) into zero-gravity acceleration and gravitational acceleration, and augmenting them separately, and (2) exploiting gravity as a directional feature and controlling it to augment training datasets. Through the comparative evaluations, we validated that the application of GCDA to training datasets showed a larger improvement in classification accuracy (96.39%) compared to the typical data augmentation methods (92.29%) applied and those that did not apply the augmentation method (85.21%).