How to make a Gyro North seeking?

Make a Gyro North Seeking

By adding top heavy or bottom heavy effect the gyro will point towards the meridian.

But due to the torque and precession, it keeps on oscillating around the meridian. It won’t point in one direction.

The requirement of the gyro is that it must settle down and maintain a fixed direction with respect to the earth.

The settling of the gyro should be such that even if it is disturbed, it should return back to it’s direction.

In order to make it North seeking, we have to reduce its oscillations. So the oscillations can be reduced by damping the gyro.

To damp the gyroscope, we have to apply another torque perpendicular to the first torque. This torque will cause precession in the direction perpendicular to the original precession.

Damping the Gyro-compass

When the gyro with the top heavy effect is damped, it is called as Damping in tilt.

Whereas damping the bottom heavy gyro is called Damping in azimuth.

In the top heavy effect, the weight is connected at the centre line of the wheel/rotor.

So damping in tilt is done by shifting the same weight slightly east of the vertical passing through centre of gravity of wheel/rotor.

Top heavy effect

In top heavy effect, the torque is applied in horizontal axis. And the precession is about the vertical axis.

While in damping, the same force produces a torque about the vertical axis. And it results in precession about the horizontal axis.

This causes the amplitude of oscillations to reduce. And finally the gyro settles down in the meridian,i.e, it becomes North seeking

Ref: Blogging sailor website