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Project Leader
Dave Inglis
Phone: 613-991-5650
Fax: 613-952-5113
Email: Allan.Inglis@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
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ARCHIVED - Electronic Kilogram Project
The electronic kilogram project known as the Watt Balance is a unique project that aims to contribute to the ongoing global effort to measure Planck’s Constant, h, and to redefine the kilogram. The project positions Canada for upcoming changes to the International System of Units (SI) by ensuring an independent national realization and dissemination capability of the kilogram, the last of the base SI units still defined in terms of an artefact. This project exploits the fundamental linkage between mechanical and electrical quantities, the gravitational force on a mass artefact being balanced by the electrical force on a coil carrying an electric current in a magnetic field. Two separate instruments are integral to this work: a watt balance, and a 1 kg pressure-controlled mass comparator. NRC has purchased the NPL Mark 2 watt balance and in close collaboration with colleagues at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), scientists are in the process of transferring the balance to a laboratory being especially prepared on the NRC Montreal Road campus.
Jacques Liard and Jason Silliker, gravimetry geophysicists at the Geodetic Survey Division of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), and Dr. Dave Inglis, project leader, are using an absolute gravimeter to measure gravitational acceleration in the NRC Watt Balance laboratory currently under construction. NRCan’s cooperation and leadership in gravitational measurements has given a tremendous boost to this aspect of the NRC Watt Balance project.
