Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2012
The behaviour of piston-cylinder operated pressure balances is characterized by thedistortion coefficient λ and zero-pressure effective areaA0 which model the variation of a pressure balance’s area interms of the applied pressure. This paper determines the uncertainties inλ and A0 when utilizing the method ofcross-floating with another pressure balance standard whose parameters and associateduncertainties are known. A limitation that is frequently encountered in many attempts ofthe uncertainty analysis for a pressure balance is that no readily accessible uncertaintyquantification framework for the distortion coefficient is present. As a result theuncertainty in a pressure balance’s area at elevated applied pressures is typicallyunderestimated in the absence of this uncertainty information. We firstly review theuncertainty formulation for a pressure balance generated pressure involving correlationeffects in terms of an implicit multivariate matrix equation approach and then utilizingthe resulting solution present the methodology to consistently perform the uncertaintyanalysis for λ and A0.