I take the occasion to thanks Pr Songsheng for his courage to work in that domain, his efforts, and his rigorous experimental setup. Best wishes, and good struggle.
Dear Dr. Jiang;
Why dont you build test reactors that can whitstand a broader range of temperatures? If you built the reaction tubes and thermocouples with materials that can stand much higher temperatures (3000 C) and heat loads, you can do calorimetry measurements without using feedback control methods that turn off and turn on the heater. I think there's a lot of potential data that you are missing.
If, upon ceasing the power supply to the reactor tube, we place the reactor tube in a pool of water in order to reduce the reactor temperature, will the Ni and LiAlH4 inside the tube continue to react?
1. What is maximum pressure that was observed when excess heat occured?
2. What is minimum temperature on the T2 thermocouple that allowed excess heat creation?
3. When excess heat started to be observable? Was it when some particular temperature or pressure was reached? Could you explain circumstances that must be fulfilled to get excess heat?
Thank you!
1. Is a publication in a well known major science journal planned?
2. Is this project officially supported and funded by the institute or is it a private initiative in your freetime, and you only have the permission to use the institutes facilities and labor equipment?
3. Are further experiments planned, maybe multiple in parallel with more people/scientists working on it heavily?
- My first and generic question to Pr Songsheng is about the plan for future experiments ? Many question have been raised, like the failure of one or more Type K thermocouple, will they be addressed in future experiments, and how?
- is there a paper to be published, reviewed about latest experiments, or after new planned experiments ?
- About the DC power supply, some observed noticed that slight change in the DC current seems to have triggered a LENR burst. They propose that some RF EM energy is the cause. Can you describe what have been the change applied (smooth, brutal) and how does the DC power supply react to those command, by smooth ramp or brutal RF rich signal ? Beside that do you have your own hypothese hypothesis on the correlation between LENR burst and DC value change?
- Does Pr Songsheng have any contact with [lexicon]Industrial Heat[/lexicon], with the technology transfer structure established around Tianjin (see http://www.icebank.cn/news/detail_2.php?id=121 http://www.icebank.cn/news/detail_2.php?id=118 http://www.icebank.cn/news/detail_2.php?id=113 ). More generally is there cooperation or contacts with other research teams, and industry actors?
I take the occasion to thanks Pr Songsheng for his courage to work in that domain, his efforts, and his rigorous experimental setup. Best wishes, and good struggle.
Replay from Song Sheng Jiang - Questions from Alain,
1. We will continue the experiment after improving the temperature measurement. We will use Pt-Rh thermocouples to replace K-type thermocouples.
2. No related paper was published
3. How to stimulate (trigger) the nuclear reaction for excess heat production, the issue is not quite clear. The excess heat production may be correlated with a high temperature, such as above 800-900 0C or so and also with electromagnetic change in the fuel cell, by a rapid increasing current in the heater for EM effect.
4. Our present experiment is a basic research, no commercial purpose.
1. What is maximum pressure that was observed when excess heat occured?
2. What is minimum temperature on the T2 thermocouple that allowed excess heat creation?
3. When excess heat started to be observable? Was it when some particular temperature or pressure was reached? Could you explain circumstances that must be fulfilled to get excess heat?
Thank you!
Replay from Song Sheng Jiang - Questions from me 356,
1. How to loading hydrogen into the nickel is a key issue. After hydrogen loading process, excess heat and pressure have no significant correlation in the experiment, see Fig. 6 and 7a, and also read the report, i.e.“Songsheng Jiang Answers Questions on LENR Replication Report” on E-Cat World.
2. The minimum temperature on the T2 thermocouple that allowed excess heat creation that is not quite clear. The temperature probably is above 800 0C
3. After triggering, T2 should be kept above 800 0C for continued excess heat creation in the fuel (see Fig. 7a in the report). No relationship between excess heat and pressure was observed, as mentioned above.
Mr. Jiang
Thank you for your hard work and for communicating with the community like this.
Can you tell us more about the "Ni-H research group" of which you are a part? How many people are members of the group? Is there any other LENR research being done by your group or interesting experimental results that you could share with us?
Many thanks for your answer Song Sheng Jiang!
I join my thanks toward Pr Songsheng Jiang, for the answers, but also for the courage to work on that subject.
I am eager to see the planned new experiments, but it takes time. I'l be patient.
Jiang : We will use Pt-Rh thermocouples to replace K-type thermocouples.
That's a very good decision. Hope the new results will be published soon.
If the B-type also shows the same behavior as last experiment, without failing, then it will be a revolutionary event in the lenr history.
IMO, this is an important event to watch.
I have a question from an independent experimenter to Pr Songcheng Jiang trying to replicate.
How do you close the chamber that is inserted in the heating.
What is the kind of fitting, O-ring, bolting that you use to make it tight. Do you have a manufacturer, part references to cite ? advices?
There is a similar question for the parallelépipédical box containing the powder. How is it closed ? it is tight ? what fitting or cement is used to tight it ?
Thanks in advance.
Dear Jiang,
Thank you for these thought-provoking results.
I am wondering how you come to the conclusion that T2 (middle) Thermocouple works accurately, and T3 (inner) Thermocouple does not work.
From the data, I agree that T2 is clearly measuring something, and shows typical exponential decay, but that would be entirely consistent with a gain or sensitivity error so that it was reading maybe 10X the temperature change actually present. I'm aware that such errors can happen because of teh clasic 10X/1X scope error where the scope is set up for the wrong probe and so reads high or low by a factor of 10. No doubt there are other possibilities here.
From the data, T3 (inner) appears to follow the temperature of T1 (outer) very precisely. I'm wondering how that can be if it is broken? Surely quite a coincidence?
From this data I would suppose that T2 has wrong gain set by some large factor, and that T1 and T3 are working normally.
Best wishes, Tom
I'm sorry to have no reply here.
My conclusion is therefore that the specific results shown here do not indicate excess heat because the mechanism for T2 gain error seems much more likely than for T3 error that duplicates T1 by chance.
I was hoping that Jiang would comment with more information about, perhaps, some additional testing of the equipment used here, or some error in my analysis above.
It was more than a month ago. Why haven't they simply replaced the TCs and repeat the experiment ?
It should take only a day or two. Months of arguing whether the TC was faulty or not will not accomplish much.
I know from Songsheng he is working on it. I guess that the problem is in the instrumentation he is using. He wants that it is interfaced with the computer, etc. Different thermocouple require different amplifier. Mostly there are available just amplifiers for type K, but for other it may not or are not so accessible, especially when you are using special equipment.
It may take few weeks until he gets everything needed.
I know it very well from my experience.
(From Song-Sheng Jiang)
I have carefully checked all the data in the 96-hours experiment. T2 temperature was correlated well with changing power voltage, excess heat production and self sustaining after power off. Most of data are plotted in the Fig.6 and 7 in the experiment. You might chek them.
The thermocouples were all calibrated by the factory, The temperature errors were 0.5 to 5 0C from -20 0C to 1000 0C. We checked them at room temperature and 100 0C boiling water. The measured temperature of T1, T2 and T3 were within 1 0C. Therefore, I do not think T2 had any temperature reading problem. It can also be seen that the T1, T2 and T3 temperature all worked well before 8:00 am May 5, i.e. before excess heat onset, see Fig.6. A more clearly original version of Fig. 6 was uploaded by Jed Rothwell at http://lenr-canr.org/Collections/JiangSfigure6data.pdf. Jed also make some notes on plot such as “excess heat onset”, “T3 malfunction”, and “excess heat production” etc according to his own understanding.
Dr. Jiang may not realize it, but there are many in the LENR world who have spent a great deal of time pouring over his results, attempting to understand what happened. There were four thermocouples. T1 and T4 appear to have both continued to function normally. The experiment was complicated by the introduction of new variables: Hydrogen was introduced to the reactor, and fan cooling of the device began. At this point the T1 temperature was approaching 1200 C.
T3 obviously failed, as shown by the collapse in temperature. T2, however, began to show a temperature rise, and the calculated temperature data shows a rise above that from T1, and it flatlined at the maximum calibration temperature (which shows that this is not a readout of thermocouple voltage, but a table-conversion to temperature). K thermocouples are not designed to operate at these temperatures, and a hot hydrogen atmosphere also can cause thermocouple failure.
Such failures may be transient. If cooled, the thermocouple may again give accurate readings. Dr. Jiang points to the correlation of the T2 readings with input power, as evidence of T2 proper operation, but at the end of the experiment, T3 is tracking T1 closely, while T2 again flatlines. If tracking input power is a sign of function, then T2 was functioning. A damaged thermocouple may function erratically.
"We have checked the thermocouple T3 after experiment, and found solder joint problem for the wire connected T3 thermocouple, perhaps the problem was caused at high temperature when excess heat onset on May 5 , however, T3 was not completely broken In this case it was considered that T3 data were incorrect, although T3 still worked after malfunction, as shown in the plots."
If we consider T3 correct, there was no anomalous heat. If we consider T2 correct, there was. In particular, the behavior at the end of the test seems to indicate that T2 is malfunctioning.
One of the signs of a damaged thermocouple would be erratic readings, and the plots we have are on a low-resolution time scale. If these were computer-recorded, they would have been averaged. If these were manually recorded, then we can imagine that an erratic physical process generated actual temperature variations. At high resolution, it would be seen that the temperature was only varying slowly. Truly erratic readings would likely vary rapidly.
Factory calibration is irrelevant to issues caused by operating the thermocouples outside safe range under difficult conditions (hot hydrogen atmosphere).
"I suggest that you look into all data on the two plots and also hope you read Hank Mills report titled Songsheng Jiang Report Shows Role of Electromagneticsm in LENR Reactions (http://www.e-catworld.com/2015…enr-reactions-hank-mills/). He shows sametimesT2 temperature not only correlated with power, but also EM, that means T2 worked well.
As mentioned above, I consider that there is no reason to doubt T2 reading in the experiment period. I am glad to discuss with you."
"No reason to doubt"? Unfortunately, Dr. Jiang is denying the obvious. He is presenting his own personal conclusions as if they were fact. There is reason to doubt, in the experimental data.
To resolve those doubts will require more data. There are a series of experimental design issues to be addressed, and, as pointed out by another, arguing over whether or not T2 was functional is pointless. It will not move this field forward.
Rather:
1. High-temperature thermocouples should be used.
2. They should be protected from hydrogen. Hydrogen should be allowed only inside the fuel chamber.
3. Cooling should remain constant for the entire experiment.
4. A thermocouple inside the fuel chamber is probably too risky. Rather, the innermost thermocouple should be immediately adjacent to the fuel chamber, in intimate contact with it, it (nickel in the first design) being a good conductor of heat, and there should be a controlled insulation layer outside that, followed by another thermocouple, and for redundancy, another insulating layer followed by another thermocouple. (and then the heater and major insulation). Perhaps alumina tubes can be used for the insulating layers.
5. Heat loss out the end should be controlled, reduced if possible, so that most heat flow is radial, out through the insulating layers and thermocouples.
6. The experiment may get simpler if Lithal is used to generate hydrogen. That should be considered. It requires high-pressure containment, though.
7. Other measures can be added to make accurate calorimetry possible. It is a complication that the outside of the device is at a variable temperature.
8. Experimental conditions should remain constant, with only one variable being changed at a time, with substantial delay to settle before any further changes.
9. The experiment should be designed to collect data if there is high anomalous heat. Attempting to avoid meltdown by reducing power abruptly complicates the data. Rather, changes should be slow.
10. The experiment should be sensitive enough to detect the expected chemical heat.
11. Temperature vs power should be calibrated with dummy runs (Ideally, a similar fuel load but not expected to be nuclear-active). The behavior of the thermocouples with heat generation in the fuel chamber should be tested with known heat generation in the fuel chamber, perhaps with a resistive heater. Calibration should be undertaken over the full operating range, if possible.
