Quantitative analysis of position setting effect on magnetohydrodynamics angular vibration sensor response

Abstract

Magnetohydrodynamics angular vibration sensor (MHD AVS) has been widely used in stabilization servo subsystem to measure angular motions with extremely low noise in relatively broad range of bandwidth. In practical, MHD AVS is usually affixed to the housing equipment with its angular axis of sensitivity possibly not coincident with the rotation axis. This work presents quantitative analysis of the position setting effect on MHD AVS performance including frequency response, linearity and measurement noise. A theoretical model that correlates physical and positional parameters with the sensor’s output is established on the basis of Navier-Stokes equation in the non-inertial system. Finite element analysis (FEA) is conducted to investigate mechanical resonant characteristics of the current sensor. The interaction between three-dimensional unsteady flow and non-uniform radial magnetic field, as well as error sources varying with frequency and positional parameters within MHD AVS are analyzed through numerical simulations. Experiments are finally carried out to verify the established theoretical model and numerical simulations under a variety of conditions. Conclusions drawn from the theoretical model, numerical simulations and experiments are found to be basically consistent, which indicate that MHD AVS is nearly no sense to the eccentricity and is essentially cosine to the output of pure rotation when its measuring axis is not parallel to the rotation axis.