TY - JOUR

T1 - Investigation of Scintrex CG-6 Gravimeters in the Gravity Meter Calibration System Hannover

AU - Timmen, Ludger

AU - Rothleitner, Christian

AU - Reich, Marvin

AU - Schröder, Stephan

AU - Cieslack, Matthias

N1 - Funding Information: The Scintrex CG-6#171 gravimeter was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC – 2123 QuantumFrontiers – 390837967 in summer 2019. We thank Hans-Martin Schuler from IGM Messtechnik GmbH (Überlingen, Germany) for his support concerning questions and problems with Scintrex meters.

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - A reliable evaluation of four Scintrex CG-6 gravimeters was done with respect to the stability of the calibration, measurement uncertainty, repeatability, and daily drift behaviour. An uncertainty on the 10 nm/s2 level for adjusted g-results is striven for. Measurements were performed on the Vertical Gravimeter Calibration Line Hannover (VGCH, 192 μm/s2 range, 20-storey building, 10 μm/s2 interval, 2 · 10−4 expanded uncertainty of the scale). The achieved standard deviations of the adjusted calibration factors are in the order of 2 to 6 · 10−5, and the maximum variations between two calibration results for a single instrument varied between 2 to 7 · 10−4. Therefore, the stability of the scale factor (calibration) of a CG-6 instrument has to be controlled by the user before and after the microgravimetric survey. The transportation drift over some hours or a working day shows partly short-term variations with an impact of up to 100 nm/s2 which can only be identified and controlled by sufficient repeated observations on same points. The manufacturer Scintrex Ltd. solved the problematic nature of an instrumental air pressure effect but a test especially for older CG gravimeters is still recommended. Overall, the CG-6 gravimeters meet fully the expectations.

AB - A reliable evaluation of four Scintrex CG-6 gravimeters was done with respect to the stability of the calibration, measurement uncertainty, repeatability, and daily drift behaviour. An uncertainty on the 10 nm/s2 level for adjusted g-results is striven for. Measurements were performed on the Vertical Gravimeter Calibration Line Hannover (VGCH, 192 μm/s2 range, 20-storey building, 10 μm/s2 interval, 2 · 10−4 expanded uncertainty of the scale). The achieved standard deviations of the adjusted calibration factors are in the order of 2 to 6 · 10−5, and the maximum variations between two calibration results for a single instrument varied between 2 to 7 · 10−4. Therefore, the stability of the scale factor (calibration) of a CG-6 instrument has to be controlled by the user before and after the microgravimetric survey. The transportation drift over some hours or a working day shows partly short-term variations with an impact of up to 100 nm/s2 which can only be identified and controlled by sufficient repeated observations on same points. The manufacturer Scintrex Ltd. solved the problematic nature of an instrumental air pressure effect but a test especially for older CG gravimeters is still recommended. Overall, the CG-6 gravimeters meet fully the expectations.

KW - Accuracy

KW - Gravimeter calibration

KW - Instrumental air pressure effect

KW - Relative gravimetry

KW - Scintrex CG-6

KW - Transportation drift

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091505102&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85091505102

VL - 127

SP - 155

EP - 162

JO - AVN Allgemeine Vermessungs-Nachrichten

JF - AVN Allgemeine Vermessungs-Nachrichten

SN - 0002-5968

IS - 4

ER -