• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.157-161
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• 2003

Nowadays there are increasing demands for more accurate measurement of atmospheric pressure according to the development of environmental industries. One of the most important pressure gauges for satisfying these demands is a quartz resonance barometer. In order to calibrate such an accurate barometer, laser/ultrasonic mercury manometers have been used. However, complexity and cost of mercury manometers made it out of use gradually. As a substitute, a gas-operated pressure balance is used for calibration of precise barometers. In such a case, commercially available pressure balances cannot be entirely suitable because consequent exposure of the piston, cylinder and masses to the atmosphere causes the problem of contamination. In this paper a device for changing the masses in situ without breaking the vacuum is described. This device made it possible to add or remove weights in the absolute mode, thereby greatly reducing the time between observations. At the same time, we investigated the characteristics of a commercial precise barometer using this new apparatus.