EU V1.3 dual cells progress

Mathieu Valat has been working EXTREMELY hard and professionally (without the paid bit) in southern France and has good news to report about the dual cells setup that he is preparing for the new Celani V2 protocol in France. Mathieu has said he will update the blog in the coming days with a video taking you on a tour of all the improvements in the lab and equipment. Keep up to date with his work on the "Euro" log book link in the "Celani Replication" panel above.

Since the last full scientific experiment in France which concluded at the end of December 2012, the lab has been optimised for compatibility with the type of reactor we are studying thermodynamically.

On the thermal regulation aspects, I don't know if you remember, there is three rooms in row with a corridor along one side, I am using the central one. So both room on each side of the central lab-room have been closed with their own doors, this way side rooms can be regulated in temperature. I set those at 21°C where the central Lab-room is set at 20°C. This way the rooms on sides are acting as heat-sources.

Then the cooler wall of the central room that is facing south and the corridor are acting as heat-sinks. Because they are cooler (16°C and 19°C).

After the temperature increases because the season change the sides room will be set at 19°C instead of 21°C hence the sinks will be swapped into sources and vice-versa.

Some other improvements are on their way too, like a better insulation of the corridor and a supplemental layer of insulation above the ceiling of the rooms.

On the insides of the central room, the ceiling opening for the A/C has been moved to create a symmetrical input of heat from opposite corners of the room; the computer server and myself. The orientation of the experiment table will be changed accordingly to fit this orientation.

I recently realized that just sitting in the room bumps the room temperature by 2°C, depending if I do work in there.
These modifications allowed to lower the variation of ambient temperature to 0.4°C/24h with a middle value of 20.1°C. I hope it will hold this way during the run, even if Celani's last paper is saying the ambient air variations have a stimulative effect on the reaction. (EDIT: the vacuum pump working permanently add 2°C to the room temperature, I will try to lower that as soon as possible)

The biggest changes that has been implemented in the between of this two tests are related to the protocol and the number of cell.

The protocol as described in this document (live document - may be reviewed) which is explaining that we will use constantly dynamic vacuum instead of pressurized vessel for the calibrations and active run, with pressurized H2 loading phase.

To measure the dynamic vacuum level, we have incorporated an appropriate gauge into the setup so this can be also recorded and the values in the experiment compared with the equivalent in the US.

In addition to this, the major difference between our experiments and those done by Celani is that we have also decided to double the number of cells. Instead of one, we will use two cells in parallel.

This allows us to double check a control cell output, with energy calculated via Stefan-Boltzmann and calibration curves. By the way, if anybody has suggestions on the calculations we should show on the "general experiment tab" like excess heat calculation based on different methods or the comparison of resistance drops in each of the wires etc. please add a comment below, Now is the time to feel free to give your input to enhance the experimental watching experience!

The size of the NiCr wire (used as a monitor or heating wire) has been changed from 0.15mm diameter to 0.3mm. This is more consistent regarding the comparative resistance of this wires (15Ω/m) regarding the constantan wire resistance for a diameter of 0.2mm after hydrogen loading (15.5Ω/m).

We also decided to use Macor end-pieces to hold the mica sheets. These are used in Celani's experiments and they are acting as thermal and electrical insulators. I got a laser cutting specialist that was ballsy enough to try to cut the components with a water-jet from a 6mm Macor sheet. They did a beautiful job.

In order to make sure we will not have a power outage during the run of this critical experiment, I decided to get an uninterruptible power supply with a double conversion system. I got a huge one (3kVA) that can keep on providing power to the PSUs and the electronics as well as the computer for a long, long time.

But the vacuum pump cannot be plugged on the UPS because the inductive electromotive force can fry the conversion system (cos(φ) too low). So I decided to get a one-way valve that triggers at 23 mbar where the vacuum pumps pull at 8 mbar. This allows to make sure the minimal quantity of air would go backward into the cell if the electrical power goes down.



Thanks go to Ryan for providing the vacuum gauge and its controller, these are working very well.

Another improvement is to use a copper tubbing instead of the rilsan type to connect the vacuum pump. Because the system will be under dynamic vacuum and heated at the same time, copper metal will dissipate better because of its cooling properties than the polyamid used in the rilsan plastic. This is safer this way for the pump on long term run.

On the web side, I started on doing a new template for the data broadcasting interface. This should match better the quantumheat.org colour scheme. I also plan on using livedata.quantumheat.org for our future data stream portal. I'll let you know as soon as it is implemented properly.

Finally, I personally haven't had the opportunity, before we published the new test plan, to say to all our donors how important their generous contributions are to the project. Your donations paid for most of the materials and equipment I had to buy so far to retrofit and implement this setup. THANK YOU ALL!