Research Article

Application of quantile functions for the analysis and comparison of gas pressure balance uncertainties

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of South Africa, Private Bag X6, Florida 1710, South Africa

^⁎ Corresponding author: ramnav@unisa.ac.za

Received: 4 July 2016
Accepted: 13 September 2016

Abstract

Traditionally in the field of pressure metrology uncertainty quantification was performed with the use of the Guide to the Uncertainty in Measurement (GUM); however, with the introduction of the GUM Supplement 1 (GS1) the use of Monte Carlo simulations has become an accepted practice for uncertainty analysis in metrology for mathematical models in which the underlying assumptions of the GUM are not valid. Consequently the use of quantile functions was developed as a means to easily summarize and report on uncertainty numerical results that were based on Monte Carlo simulations. In this paper, we considered the case of a piston–cylinder operated pressure balance where the effective area is modelled in terms of a combination of explicit/implicit and linear/non-linear models, and how quantile functions may be applied to analyse results and compare uncertainties from a mixture of GUM and GS1 methodologies.