Measurements of mechanical quantities are one of the most important items and widespread kinds of measurements. Measurements of mass, force, roughness, linear velocities and accelerations including gravitational ones, are widely used in science, industry, building, in transport field, in trade etc.
Tasks which are solved with the help of mechanical measurements can be classified in such a way: measurements of quantity of substances and materials, determination of their mechanical properties, determination of parameters of movement of hard, liquid and gas substances and materials, determination of geophysical and geodynamical parameters.
In the case of decreasing the accuracy level of mechanical measurements there appear some difficulties in trade, registration of energy resource keepers during their production, getting, storage, transportation, distribution become more complicated, the risk of anthropogenic disasters is increasing and etc. With the aim to assure the necessary accuracy level and uniformity of mechanical measurements in the NSC “Institute of Metrology” a number of events on creation and improvement of the measurement standard base of Ukraine is being carried out.
During 1993-1997 in the NSC “Institute of Metrology” there was created the national primary standard of 1 kg mass unit and national verification scheme for mass measuring instruments, which covers some millions of working and standard measuring instruments. Last time due to the improvement of the measurement standard the range of mass unit reproduction (from 1 mg up to 50 kg) is expanded considerably and has the range which corresponds to the modern world level that was confirmed during the comparisons with the appropriate measurement standards of Russia, Germany, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania.
The uniformity of measurements of metal hardness is based on the created in 1999 in the NSC “Institute of Metrology” national primary standards according to Brinell, Vickers, Rockwell, Super-Rockwell hardness scales. In addition to transfer of hardness units to metrology regional centers, the NSC “Institute of Metrology” is able to produce working measurement standards of hardness units of the 1st and 2nd class, which are presented at many industry enterprises.
Such an important problem for Ukraine and humanity as increasing of safety level of exploitation of nuclear power plants caused the need of creation of number of safety systems of NPP for external factors. In NSC “Institute of Metrology” there is developed and organized a serial production of apparatus of antiseismic protection of NPP, allowing to switch the nuclear reactor in the case of seismic tremor in zone of energy blocks location. At the same time there is created the national primary standard for metrological assurance of these seismic transducers. Both the standard and seismic transducers are protected with the patents of Ukraine. Some NPPs are equipped with such seismic transducer.
Gravimetry is one of the unique kinds of measurements where the NSC “Institute of Metrology” has considerable achievements.
For the measurement of gravity acceleration there is used a ballistic method when the parameters of movement of free falling in vacuum body are measured with the help of laser interferometer. Such instruments – ballistic gravimeters – were created only by national metrological institutes of several leading countries of the world: USA, Japan, France, Great Britain, Italy, Australia, China. Metrological assurance of gravitational measurements made it possible to solve fundamental tasks, such as providing of reproduction of the units of physical quantities (force, pressure) and certification of gravimetric polygons and base stations; creation of base geodesic and gravimetric networks, providing a possibility to study geodynamic processes; creation of new methods of finding the minerals and etc.
The NSC “Institute of Metrology” also developed and produced stationary gravimeters, land field, marine abovewater, for the work at moving bases, the main part of which is still in exploitation.