A gridiron pendulum was a temperature-compensated clock pendulum invented by British clockmaker John Harrison around 1726. It was used in precision clocks. In ordinary clock pendulums, the pendulum rod expands and contracts with changes in temperature. The period of the pendulum's swing depends on its length, so a pendulum clock's rate varied with changes in ambient temperature, causing inaccurate timekeeping. The gridiron pendulum consists of alternating parallel rods of two metals with different thermal expansion coefficients, such as steel and brass. The rods are connected by a frame in such a way that their different thermal expansions (or contractions) compensate for each other, so that the overall length of the pendulum, and thus its period, stays constant with temperature. The gridiron pendulum was used during the Industrial Revolution period in pendulum clocks, particularly precision regulators employed as time standards in factories, laboratories, office buildings, railroad stations and post offices to schedule work and set other clocks. The gridiron became so associated with accurate timekeeping that by the turn of the 20th century many clocks had pendulums with decorative fake gridirons, which had no temperature compensating qualities.
How it works
The gridiron pendulum is constructed so the high thermal expansion (zinc or brass) rods make the pendulum shorter when they expand, while the low expansion steel rods make the pendulum longer. By using the correct ratio of lengths, the greater expansion of the zinc or brass rods exactly compensate for the greater length of the low expansion steel rods, and the pendulum stays the same length with temperature changes. The simplest form of gridiron pendulum, introduced as an improvement to Harrison's around 1750 by John Smeaton, consists of five rods, 3 of steel and two of zinc. A central steel rod runs up from the bob to the suspension pivot. At that point a cross-piece (middle bridge) extends from the central rod and connects to two zinc rods, one on each side of the central rod, which reach down to, and are fixed to, the bottom bridge just above the bob. The bottom bridge clears the central rod and connects to two further steel rods which run back up to the top bridge attached to the suspension. As the steel rods expand in heat, the bottom bridge drops relative to the suspension, and the bob drops relative to the middle bridge. However, the middle bridge rises relative to the bottom one because the greater expansion of the zinc rods pushes the middle bridge, and therefore the bob, upward to match the combined drop caused by the expanding steel. In simple terms, the upward expansion of the zinc counteracts the combined downward expansion of the steel (which has a greater total length). The rod lengths are calculated so that the effective length of the zinc rods multiplied by zinc's thermal expansion coefficient equals the effective length of the steel rods multiplied by iron's expansion coefficient, thereby keeping the pendulum the same length. Harrison's original pendulum used brass rods (pure zinc not being available then); these required more rods because brass does not expand as much as zinc does. Instead of one high expansion rod on each side, two are needed on each side, requiring a total of 9 rods, five steel and four brass. The exact degree of compensation can be adjusted by having a section of the central rod which is partly brass and partly steel. These overlap (like a sandwich) and are joined by a pin which passes through both metals. A number of holes for the pin are made in both parts and moving the pin up or down the rod changes how much of the combined rod is brass and how much is steel. In the late 19th century the Dent company developed a tubular version of the zinc gridiron in which the four outer rods were replaced by two concentric tubes which were linked by a tubular nut which could be screwed up and down to alter the degree of compensation. In the 1730s clockmaker John Ellicott designed a version that only required 3 rods, two brass and one steel (see drawing), in which the brass rods as they expanded with increasing temperature pressed against levers which lifted the bob. The Ellicott pendulum did not see much use.
Disadvantages Scientists in the 1800s found that the gridiron pendulum had disadvantages that made it unsuitable for the highest-precision clocks. The friction of the rods sliding in the holes in the frame caused the rods to adjust to temperature changes in a series of tiny jumps, rather than with a smooth motion. This caused the rate of the pendulum, and therefore the clock, to change suddenly with each jump. Later it was found that zinc is not very stable dimensionally; it is subject to creep. Therefore, another type of temperature-compensated pendulum, the mercury pendulum invented in 1721 by George Graham, was used in the highest-precision clocks. By 1900, the highest-precision astronomical regulator clocks used pendulum rods of low thermal expansion materials such as invar and fused quartz.
Gallery
Mathematical analysis
Temperature error All substances expand with an increase in temperature θ {\displaystyle \theta } , so uncompensated pendulum rods get longer with a temperature increase, causing the clock to slow down, and get shorter with a temperature decrease, causing the clock to speed up. The amount depends on α {\displaystyle \alpha } , the linear coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the material they are composed of. CTE is usually given in parts per million (ppm) per degree Celsius. If a rod has a length L {\displaystyle L} at some standard temperature θ 0 {\displaystyle \theta _{\text{0}}} , the length of the rod as a function of temperature θ {\displaystyle \theta } is
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