drift excursion

English

Etymology

Originally a reference to the excursion or deviation of a sea vessel from its course due to drift resulting from tides, wind, etc., this term has been generalized to refer to any deviation in position due to outside forces.

Noun

drift excursion (plural drift excursions)

1. The movement of something (such as a vehicle, structure, or charged particles) from its intended course or position due to outside forces.
   • 1966, Carl A. Wagner, The Earth's Longitude Gravity Field as Sensed by the Drift of Three, page 89:

     A very close approximation to the geographic drift excursion in a resonant gravity field of a 24-hour satellite follows the differential equation of motion, Equation 2, (see also Reference 2) and is, evidently, given by an elliptical integral such as that developed in Appendix E of Reference 3.

   • 2013, Roscoe B White, Theory Of Toroidally Confined Plasmas, page 418:

     A collision changes the detailed nature of the particle orbit in a time which is very short compared to the time required to traverse magnetic field scale lengths, thus producing a step across flux surfaces the size of the orbit drift excursion away from the flux surface .

   • 2024, S. Lalit Sagar, Dipti Ranjan Sahoo, T. P. Anand, Vasant A. Matsagar, “Development of a Quasi-Static Bidirectional Loading Protocol for the Seismic Evaluation of Hybrid RC-SCC Beam-Column Joints”, in Federico M. Mazzolani, editor, Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Behaviour of Steel Structures in Seismic Areas:

     The bidirectional drift excursion for the beam-column joint is applied in the anticlockwise direction as per the numbering sequence illustrated in Figs. 8a and 8b.

See also

• banana orbit