Lugano performance recalculated - the baseline for replications

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    If to much Lithium is consumed, then the overall COP may be < 1!!. Its just a nice transmutation process!


    If you could transmute 7Li to 6Li that way, even at COP << 1, you'd have evidence of something pretty amazing, because you would have nuclear effects occurring in a chemical environment at low energies. (I think we're drifting off-topic.)

    Quote

    Regarding (3), there is no evidence that they corrected the graph. Perhaps they did not put their corrected version in the report.I doubt that 0.69 is correct for the dummy at "450 C" also.


    Perhaps I misspoke. They corrected the emissivity values from the graph that they used in the dummy test to determine temperature.


    Quote

    We therefore took the same emissivity trend found in the literature as reference; but, by applying emissivity reference dots along the rods, we were able to adapt that curve to this specific type of alumina, by directly measuring local emissivity in places close to the reference dots (Figure 7).


    and


    Quote

    “Dots” of known emissivity, necessary to subsequent data acquisition, were placed in various places on the cable rods. It was not possible to perform this operation on the dummy reactor itself (and a fortiori on the ECat), because the temperatures attained by the reactor were much greater than those sustainable by the dots. We also found that the ridges made thermal contact with any thermocouple probe placed on the outer surface of the reactor extremely critical, making any direct temperature measurement with the required precision impossible


    and


    I agree the graph of book values is not so corrected.

    @Shane D.
    I believe that the difference in the cameras is the microbolometer array. I think that he high temperature unit is rated or changed somehow in order to not be swamped by high levels of IR radiance caused by high temperatures. Most people don't buy the camera with idea of pointing it at glowing hot furnaces and such.


    In order to calculate temperature, whatever the camera sees must be converted to either a specific greybody or a blackbody equivalent that becomes the standard basis for changes in the emissivity setting. The unit cannot be factory calibrated for use with various unknown materials beforehand any other way that I can see. The camera does not know it is looking at a selective emitter or a normal ideal emitter, so the best it can do is level what it sees (it has enough bandwidth to see a gradient) to the best fit with a blackbody, then converting to a greybody is easy. The errors in this approach can be mitigated in consumer use to a reasonable degree by calibration against a known emissivity (dots etc.) or a well-characterized temperature reading (thermocouple, specific melting points of some substance, etc.), or both. Textbook values that are accurate within reason are OK if the overall accuracy of the temperature is not critical.
    In the case of cheaper IR cameras, they are usually permanently set at an emissivity of 0.95, and are still fairly effective for relative T changes (looking for heat losses in houses, etc.) or if an emissivity item also of 0.95 is attached to the surface of the object (masking tape, electrical tape, black paint, etc.).


    The choice of long wave vs other IR ranges may have been suggested for alumina, but I have no information on that. The choice of long wave IR was a reasonable one, since it works for the majority of materials, in the case of having no idea what to expect beforehand, IMO.

    @Thomas Clarke


    Do you agree that the main calibration dummy temperatures and therefore calculated power looks suspect?


    Edit: I did a bit of number juggling, and it might even be possible to get the about the same heat W (around 450-480 W, required to roughly match the electrical input power) at a lower dummy and rod temperature than calculated in the report, since the total normal emissivity is higher between 230°C and and 450°C. It will take a fair bit of work to match it up, but I think it could be do-able. More measured points than the one spike to 0.8 total normal emissivity (on report Plot 1) would be necessary to keep it from being a total fantasy calculation.

    I am building a better apparatus for testing the IR camera emissivity settings and alumina. Tests last night (done quickly) gave an emissivity greater than 1.0 to get the IR camera T correct compared to a well characterized thermocouple. Attaching the TC to a ceramic surface to get a good reading is a pain. It is more complex than it sounds. I also compared to a blackened surface with similar results so... there could be a few things causing problems.


    Regarding the Plot 1 (Lugano) total normal emissivity below around 300°C, I wonder if that drop-off towards room temperature is caused by convection dominating the heat transfer, depending on geometry. It seem that it should be roughly level from the peak towards room temperature. Total normal emissivity data for the range below 400°C to 21°C is not very consistent from source to source, and the values are probably much more sensitive to surface effects, porosity, and overall composition of the alumina in this range, I suspect.


    I also ran some better calculations of the dummy, to see if a higher Camera emissivity value, and therefore a lower calculated T, could result in nearly equivalent W values for output as reported for the Dummy. I seem to be able to get close, by a bit of cherry picking the camera emissivity (to around 0.85 seems to work OK), but the W are still lower, after recalculating the necessary total normal emissivity for each new temperature per subdivision, by around 2 to 3 W per subdivision.
    I will next re-do the (dreaded) convection portion, to see if that can make up some of the radiation losses. Otherwise, the new calculations will end up short of the electrical input by at about 50 W, maybe even as much as 70 W. Not bad, but that is cherry picking quite a bit more than I would like.

    'Advanced-to-Revolutionary Space Technology Options - The Responsibly Imaginable'
    April 2013 Dennis M. Bushnell, Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia
    http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/n….nasa.gov/20130011698.pdf


    Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, the Realism and the Outlook


    LENR could, by itself, COMPLETELY Revolutionize Space access and utilization. Although there is a quite long history of “anomalous” observations including transmutations the “recent” consideration of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions begins with the Pons/ Fleishman late 80’s observations and assertions regarding what they termed “Cold Fusion”. Subsequent difficulties with experimental replication and an utter lack of convincing theoretical explication forced research in this arena “underground” with minimal financial support.The current situation is that we now have over two decades of hundreds of experiments indicating heat and transmutations with minimal radiation and low energy input.


    By any 'rational' measure this evidence indicates something real is occurring.


    So, is LENR “Real”?


    Evidently, from the now long standing and diverse experimental evidence – yes.
    With effects occurring using diverse materials, methods of energy addition etc.


    This is FAR from a “Narrow Band”/episodic set of physical phenomena.

    I am very much a newbie but getting ready to start Parkhomov type experiment. To my unprepared mind, a simple question is puzzling: the amount of fuel is about 1 gm, it should really be contained in a very small volume. Why then does Parkhomov and every body who is trying to replicate Rossi's Hot cat using a ceramic tube that is orders of magnitude larger in internal volume than the volume of 1 gm of Ni powder? Is it because a wire-wound heater has to have certain dimensions in order to accommodate sufficient length of heater wire to have a certain minimum amount of resistance?

    G.B.Goble


    This thread is for discussion of the Lugano experiment results.


    Maybe you need to move your post to a new thread?


    esskumar - if you are thinking of that just remember that the original experiment parkhomov was copying did not produce any positive results other than a magic apparent transmutation of Ni entirely into 62Ni. Now, if real, that could make you rich since pure 62Ni is very expensive. But no isotopic changes have been observed other than in samples provided by Rossi.


    You might also want to count the number of zero excess heat replications (consistent with the original results) and positive excess heat replications. Then, look at the positives to ask are they replicable? Do the replications show the same behaviour (in other words is it robust).


    Given the nature of these experiments where temperature is measured rather than power output artifacts are common, and therefore you would expect a number of positives just for that reason.


    You ask a sensible question about the design of this experiment. I think there are issues about heat distribution - a larger reactor (they are still pretty small) has more chance of distributing heat and also its temperature can more easily be measured (though even then as i'be pointed out there are artifacts).


    An even better questions is why, if 1g of fuel produces a 20% excess heat, you do not put some insulation round the reactor to reduce power loss and so attain the sam temperatures with 1/10 the input power. Then you would have 200% excess?


    Somehow no-one ever seems to find this except Rossi, who gets it by, for example, measuring input power incorrectly using average volt and ampere meters on a spiky waveform. He was actually caught doing this in one test and Mats tried to explain to him why it was wrong. Rossi remained adamant that he was right, from which Mats, generous that he is, reckoned it was just that Rossi had absolutely no understanding about electrical power.


    So the above is how the Lugano results impinge on you activities - and otherwise you might want to start a new thread or use some other one? Though the topic of "why do these tests not use much lower input power?" is reasonable.


    Best wishes, Tom

    Quote

    Thomas, before you scare off the trespassers on your thread, consider that every experiment yields knowledge and experience. Whatever the results.There is no negative or positive result. Just results.


    Absolutely. Which is why I think other experiments should have their own threads and not be mixed up with the Rossi/bad reports/non-working device stuff.


    My point here is that I can't see the rational reason for so much effort on replication of one specific non-working device. But I realise I'm in the minority.


    Another point is that if you want to test for a specific thing, you should design the best test you can. All these experiments to detect excess heat that unnecessarily ADD large amounts of heat to the system are not optimal. I think it was Brain Aherne who noted this and proposed to use an oven to establish working temperature and differential thermocouples to determine (with much better sensitivity) any excess heat.

    For me, it it the most interessanting, that the result of the ash analysis of the Lugano test.
    Here you see the report: http://www.sifferkoll.se/siffe…10/LuganoReportSubmit.pdf
    We see, that the isotopes distrubion changed completly.
    The NI58 was 68.1 % in natural occuring,
    and NI62 was 3.6 % in natural occuring.
    Then, in ash:
    NI58 was measured as 0.8 % , and
    NI62 was measured as 98.7 %
    See details im report, Appendix 3, in Table 1.
    For me is this the proof of the reality of LENR.

    • Official Post

    Lugano isotopic analysis is amazing, but there is no certainty the ashes analysed are just the transformation of the fuel analysed.


    the description of the extraction talk of scratching inside...


    it is like scratching the barbecue to guess in what the wood have been transformed.
    Sure there will be very interesting reaction visible on the barbecue, but main reaction C+O2 and H2+O will not be clear. youw ill however see improbable and non representative organic chemistry evidence.

    Quote from felix983

    For me, it it the most interessanting, that the result of the ash analysis of the Lugano test.
    Here you see the report: <a href="http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/LuganoReportSubmit.pdf" class="externalURL" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/wp-co…10/LuganoReportSubmit.pdf</a>
    We see, that the isotopes distrubion changed completly.
    The NI58 was 68.1 %…


    The isotope distribution of the ash is completely impossible from a nuclear physics point of view. In addition there is no need to explain any excess heat. Also, according to Bob G, Rossi had bought isotopically enriched 62Ni. The simplest explanation is that Rossi used the isotopically enriched 62Ni as an ash sample. That also explains why the ash sample was so small (62Ni is quite expensive!).


    The manipulation of the ash is consistent with Rossi's admitting that he manipulated the ash sample from the spring of 2011. This sample was completely different from the Lugano ash sample in that it was natural isotope ratios of Ni and 10% Cu in the form of separate particles. The Cu could thus not have come from the claimed p+Ni --> Cu reaction.

    @felix983
    I'm not sure if you are familiar with the only previous isotopic test of a sample provided by Rossi. That showed extraordinary transformation of Ni into Cu. Which was what Rossi has been at the time claiming was his reaction.


    Then various people pointed out that both the ash Ni and Cu had isotopic ratios that were normal, and the excitement collapsed. Rossi however continued to assert that the sample was genuine, until a few years later, when the original tester was dead, and he said that all along the sample had been contaminated.


    You can see why I'm not convinced by this sample, especially because there is reliable evidence Rossi had bought 62Ni and the isotopic composition of the ash is exactly what would be expected from bought 62Ni.


    Rossi has found, alas, in LENR, a fertile ground for his business where every mistake or error can be interpreted positively, and because nothing is certain about the LENR reaction except that it exists, it is easy to fit any data to it.


    In the case of this 62Ni you need the 99% conversion to be only on the surface of the grains, or only on some grains, because otherwise the excess heat from conversion would be higher than the zero measured, and also higher than the X3 COP claimed.


    That is pretty unlikely - to get such selective but complete in places reaction - although in LENR anything is possible - Axil will be able to fit any new evidence to a set of words than claim to explain it.


    So Rossi encourages all the worst tendencies in the LENR research community, and himself is boosted by those tendencies.


    EDIT - apologies - I see I've duplicated with Peter Ekstrom
    There is one more thing from Peter's evidence. Contamination is possible - copper tubes etc. But finding a copper admixture as separate particles seems difficult to explain except by deliberate admixture of powdered copper.

    @Thomas
    Three additional interesting facts about the fuel analysis from spring 2011 (reported in the Swedish forum Energikatalysatorn):
    1 The unused fuel does not contain any Li. In later versions of E-Cat Li is an important ingredient.
    2 The Li content in the ash is in separate particles, probably a contaminant in the Cu particles. There in no way Li could result from nuclear reactions in Ni. That would violate conservation of energy since the binding energy per nucleon of Li is much lower than that of Ni (and that is true for all nuclei below Ni).
    3 The ash is magnetic while the fuel is not. This indicates that the ash has been in a running E-Cat, presumably magnetized by the B field of the heating coils.

    The Li reaction channels essentially breed more Li7 while depleting Li6. There are at least four Li reaction channels that produce He6 that decays to LI6. So starting with natural compliments of Lithium isotopes Li6 and Li7 (Lugano) the Li7 isotope is enriched from the LENR phenomenon. This is based on the evidence from the Lugano report, well understood Li reaction channels, and an application of the Widom-Larsen theory. This may qualify as a 'mundane" QM explanation of the skewed Li isotope ratio in the Lugano ash, it's more like the view of the ant hill from earth orbit.

    Quote from David Brady

    The Li reaction channels essentially breed more Li7 while depleting Li6. There are at least four Li reaction channels that produce He6 that decays to LI6. So starting with natural compliments of Lithium isotopes Li6 and Li7 (Lugano) the Li7 isotope is enriched from the LENR phenomenon.


    Does not compute... Breed more 7Li, deplete 6Li. Four Li channels produce 6He-->6Li, i.e. more 6Li. You have to make up your mind! As far as I remember 7Li was depleted in the Lugano test, not enriched. The main reaction was supposedly p+7Li-->2 alpha.


    And Widom-Larsen theory is not an accepted theory.


    .

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