The Bourdon Gauge

Abstract

ALLOW me to suggest to such of your readers as are interested in this subject the following experiment. Cut out of cardboard two annular strips, each of somewhat more than a quadrant, the inner radius being say 7 inches, and the outer radius 9 inches. Along the middle of each strip—that is, along the circle of 8 inches radius—cut the boards half through, so as to render them flexible, and then join the two strips together with gum paper at the inner and outer edges. In this way we obtain a curved tube whose section is a rhombus, and whose curvature is connected with the magnitudes of the angle of the rhombus. The manipulation of such a tube gives definiteness to one's ideas, and enables one to recognize that internal pressure, tending to augment the included volume, and therefore to make the section square, must also cause the curvature of the axis to approach a definite associated value. In this case the deformations are practically by bending, principally, indeed, at the hinges; and I cannot doubt that in its main features trie mechanism of an ordinary Bourdon gauge may be looked at in the same light.