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The Gyroscope Forum |
10 May 2024 14:54
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Welcome to the gyroscope forum. If you have a question about gyroscopes in general,
want to know how they work, or what they can be used for then you can leave your question here for others to answer.
You may also be able to help others by answering some of the questions on the site.
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Question |
| Asked by: |
osama nagmeldin |
| Subject: |
gyroscopes composses |
| Question: |
I'am a student at faculty of mechanical engineering in my fourth year. I am asked to define the gyroscope compess, to tell its function and to write up its uses, so could i please get an answer |
| Date: |
19 December 2006
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Answers (Ordered by Date)
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| Answer: |
Todd Blackmon - 12/01/2007 00:42:16
| | | From the Handbook of Physics, Benenson et. al : (Note: This book is great general physics reference)
"A Gyrocompass is a gyroscope with a rotation axis freely movable in the horizontal plane, but with the vertical axis fixed by the suspension. The gyroscope thereby carries out a forced rotation with the Earth's rotation OmegaE and tries to align its angular momentum parallel to it. The angular velocity of the Earth points permanently north, hence the gyrocompass always aligns to the north. In this way, it may supplement, or substitute for, a magnetic compass.
The main problem with the gyrocompass is due to the slowness of the Earth's rotation, which makes the effect very small and difficult to protect against perturbations. One uses a gyroscope with a very large rate of rotation and as low a bearing friction as possible (eg. in a liquid).
On a moving ship there is another torque due to the motion along a meridian, which causes a deviation of the gyrocompass. Airplanes may move even faster than the local rotation velocity of the Earth, and hence the gyrocompass cannot be used.
In the vicinity of the poles, the gyrocompass fails, just as the magnetic compass does, since the rotation axis of Earth points nearly normally to the surface, and hence the torque projected on the horizontal plane becomes very small.
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