Gyroscopic devices with communicating liquid-filled vessels for the time-delayed generation of moments

摘要

For functional control in gyroscopic devices, particularly in gyroscopic compasses, communicating vessels are used in which viscous fluid, particularly oil, can flow to and fro in the case of an inclination and thus generates torques on the gyroscopic system which exhibit a low-pass effect due to the viscosity of the fluid. With very low level differences, however, small disturbances which narrow down the functional control quality occur in the level compensation due to adhesive and surface-tension influences on the vessel walls. According to the invention, the required regularity of the flow of the fluid down to the smallest differences in level is achieved by the fact that the vessel walls are completely wetted by lining with a thin layer of absorbent porous material which always remains wetted by the action of capillarity, no matter what the level of the fluid in the vessels is. The annular vessel used as oil-filled damping vessel in the two-gyro compass requires high accuracy in the regularity of the oil equalisation, especially for small level differences, if the commercially available two-gyro compass is to be developed into a high-precision compass, in that the calculable course indication errors due to manoeuvres are continuously corrected with the aid of a computer which is fed with the travelling speed values supplied by the travel measuring system.