Worth Trying (update 2)

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We have been mulling over the potential of variation from the bulk of our calibration runs and the recent experiment wire configuration, where the Celani wire is not wound so tight and so does not spread as far down the cell as the NiChrome wires did in the calibration runs.

In thinking about this, we had a bit of a eureka moment. We had already done a calibration run in Helium with the Celani wire before it was loaded. Looking at the resistance of the wire this afternoon - we think that the wire is still loaded at least partially. On finding out that it is possible it will still generate excess energy in a Helium environment, we realised we had all we needed to try and test a scenario where there is a great baseline to compare to. It also means we are able to test for excess power with one variable removed - the gas for this experiment will be the same.

So, we are now vacuuming out the Hydrogen and loading in 3.5 bar of Helium. We will run 5 steps that correspond to some of the points in the original run and see how they relate.

Then we will see where we and to go from there. Stay tuned!

For those of you paying real close attention, we now have the proportional room temperature controller functioning. It seems to be much more stable.

EDIT:

Here is the calibration formula we are using to match the RunHe1

As planned - we took the power up in 5 steps. In the 3rd and 4th steps - something interesting started happening - the impedance started to fall. After this we were reporting (not meaningful) excess power based on calibration curve of up to 0.5W at the time of adding this note. Please click here to see what I am talking about. NOTE: I am publishing from UK so reported times are GMT.

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0 #30 123star 2012-11-16 17:56

In my opinion the spread between different runs with different wires could be due to the fact that the thermocouples are partly heated by direct radiation and partly by conduction. The temperature and the emissivity of the wires and hence their spectrum varies from run to run. We could try to reduce the spread, at least on Glassout, in two ways:

1) Using a steel container pipe (or anything that is either reflective or opaque).

2) Meanwhile, we could try to reduce the spread by putting a radiation shield before the glass_out probe. I'm thinking about a little rectangle of metal sheet inside the tube in correspondence with the glass_out probe, which is external.

0 #29 Ben 2012-11-16 14:13

If hydrogen (H-H I assume) can get into the metal, wouldn't the HE get into the metal too? HE should be smaller than H-H. H-H has a bond between the 2 protons, whereas HE has those protons (and neutrons) all in 1 compact nucleus. So by my way of thinking, HE is smaller, therefore can permeate the metal even more than hydrogen.

In reading the posts, it seems that the assumption is that the HE either doesn't penetrate the metal, or is inert (in a nuclear sense). Are these valid assumptions?

If the metal gets loaded with HE, would that not take up space that the hydrogen would/could occupy?

0 #28 Robert Greenyer 2012-11-16 03:11

I take it back - resistance still rising... interesting.

0 #27 Ged 2012-11-16 02:53

Thank you guys for this incredible work, even late into the night. It's exciting watching what this is doing, whatever the results. Just trying to understand what's going on with the impedance is intriguing.

I wonder if helium can displace hydrogen at this temperatures and pressures, and if so, what the exchange rate would be. Hoepfully not enough to deabsorb the hydrogen from the wire at a meaningful time scale enough to kill the experiment. I think we would assume if that started happening, impedance would go up though as active hydrogens were lost.

0 #26 Ecco 2012-11-16 02:53

@Robert Greenyer: true, but according to the data and charts visible in the presentation it appears Celani usually adopts much higher gas pressures than what you have so far.

To put it straight, this could be the main reason why the wire in your reactor hardly shows any anomalous behavior. It is not just a secondary variable among many (like for example the exact glass tube material), it's an important one, and it's differing by a factor of 2.

0 #25 Robert Greenyer 2012-11-16 02:42

Impedance appears to be reaching another apogee - the next hours could be interesting....

0 #24 Robert Greenyer 2012-11-16 02:39

@Ecco

So many variables - so many things to try - that is why we want a number of people in a number of countries working on this simultaneously.

0 #23 Ged 2012-11-16 02:31

Hmm, this is fascinating. I wish I was around more to follow all that is going on with the data. We definitely need a new summary.

0 #22 Ecco 2012-11-16 02:28

@Ryan Hunt: nice, will be interesting to see how this will unfold. Anyway, also try considering switching the same power to the inactive wire: in his ICCF17 presentation Celani noted that in a case, excess heat was larger when applying power indirectly rather than directly. See page 48 here:

22passi.it/.../...

(btw, initial pressure of around 6.8 bar, rising to over 9 bar with a 48W load! The more I read - once again - this presentation, the more I think that maybe the wire should be loaded at a higher hydrogen pressure for success. Again, just thinking aloud)

The cell currently being tested is under helium atmosphere though, so I'm not sure how much all of this would apply. Maybe next time hydrogen will be used.

0 #21 Ryan Hunt 2012-11-16 02:17

Just upped the power a bit. I guess we'll see if it does anything for it.

0 #20 Ecco 2012-11-16 01:59

I wonder if the irregular behavior of output power when increasing temperatures is of some significance. It might have something to do with convective heat transfer around the reactor, though (T_Mica and T_Well don't show this behavior, but T_GlassOut and T_GlassIn do).

Active wire impedance appears to be reaching a plateau, suggesting that there won't be any more changes with the current testing conditions.

Plans for this night? Maybe it's better to switch the gas back to the hydrogen mix, in hope that the wire will load and embrittle some more? It might be interesting to make a low pressure, high temperature run.

Just thinking aloud.

By the way, after reading Celani's ICCF17 presentation again, I found out that he uses an initial hydrogen pressure of 7.5 bar, rather higher than on tests performed by the MFMP team.

0 #19 Lu 2012-11-16 01:45

Time to try higher P_In? Maybe other wire?

0 #18 Robert Greenyer 2012-11-16 01:22

@ Ron B

It needs to be heated to within a certain temperature range in Hydrogen in order to load it.

0 #17 Ron B 2012-11-16 01:00

Celani said that once the wire is loaded it is actually REALLY hard to get it unloaded.

I wonder if that's only true if the wire is heated after having been infused with hydrogen or just in general.

0 #16 Ecco 2012-11-16 00:41

The impedance drop of the active wire is currently quite marginal compared to that of the previous power step. Weird. In either cases, it seems much lower than what it's supposed to be (in hydrogen atmosphere).

0 #15 Ryan Hunt 2012-11-16 00:29

According to the IR temperature gun, the high temp in the middle is now about 302.

0 #14 David Roberson 2012-11-16 00:07

I am seeing an interesting variation in the exponential curve fit for the T_GlassOut temperature versus time response at constant drive power during this run. There are regions where the error becomes significantly higher than I obtained during the earlier hydrogen tests. This may represent temperatures where excess power is generated although it is too early to be sure.

0 #13 Ecco 2012-11-16 00:07

Since the wire was already loaded and might be possibly showing anomalous effects, could this calibration run/test still be considered valid, at least at lower temperatures?

0 #12 Robert Greenyer 2012-11-15 23:57

We have 280 on parts of the wire - maybe 2/3rds according to Ryan with the IR laser thermometer (which we need to calibrate - thanks to a contributor for the suggestion)- so just into minimum trigger temp range.

We have one more power step set in the plan for this test - but might take it higher.

0 #11 Robert Greenyer 2012-11-15 23:51

Ryan is checking right now to see if any part of the cell is at minimum trigger temp.

Excess under exact (but not loaded) setup conditions it bouncing through break even. Not conclusive.

The resistance change is fascinating.

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