Tube Reactor design

    • Official Post
    Quote from Ecco

    I tried graphing the data. A COP of 1.22 seems a bit too far-fetched to me.


    I don't see why it is far fetched. Look at the power level of 75 W.
    The temperature difference is 25 °C (K) thus by the stefan-boltzmann-radiation law.in the case of the fueled reactor
    we have(450°C-25°C)^4 =3.2625e+010
    In case of the calibration run we have(425°C-25°C)^4 = 2.5600e+010


    thus we have a ratio of 3.2625e+010 / 2.5600e+010 = 1.27 corresponding to a COP that is even a little bit higher.


    Of course certain effects have to be taken into account, c. f. the post above by GlowFish,
    but I do not agree with him that these effects local temperature change etc.
    can be enough to explain a difference of 25°C.
    IF your TC is really unbiased.
    Thus I think probably we have a real COP between 1.15 and 1.2 or so.

    @Majorana: you would have to use Kelvin temperature for that calculation and that would lower your estimation by a good margin.
    We also don't know how representative of the entire reactor surface the current temperature reading in the live data is. Hot spots have been an issue in past experiments, but even without them existing, the heat distribution could have changed for several reasons (eg. heating wire rearrangement inside the tube, different thermal conductivity of the internal atmosphere compared to calibration, etc.).


    This would have been a good chance to put the Optris camera into use.

    Actually ambient temperature is lower by few degrees at these days than during time of the calibration run. Thus the COP should be even little bit higher.


    Except this and added fuel, nothing else changed with the reactor.
    For sure this is not only anomaly as it happened previous time as well with reactor of the same design. Current one was built in the same way and with new, unused parts.


    Measurement error of the Optris Pi camera and PCE-830 power analyser are within range of 1-2%.
    Hot spot is not moving as far as I can see and is exactly at the center. I have all the data and we can analyse each moment of the calibration and the run in any point that is sensed by the Optris.


    The reason for excess heat (if it is not a kind of LENR) may be only in coil changes due to added fuel. As I have seen previously LiAlH4 was electrostatically trapped to it or if it was not this, then something unusual formed across the heater.


    After this run, coil resistance will be measured within precision of at least miliOhm units to exclude mechanical changes.


    I have to exclude reason, that the excess heat is caused by hydrogen thermal conductivity, since the excess heat was previously present even after opening the reactor for couple of minutes and very slowly returned to the original values.

    • Official Post
    Quote from me356

    The reason for excess heat may be only in coil changes due to added fuel. As I have seen previously LiAlH4 was electrostatically trapped to it or if it was not this, then something unusual formed across the heater.



    Sorry if you answered before, but may I ask (again) how you measure ohmic power?


    Do you measure current and voltage independently (two separate amp and volt meter)?


    If you do it like this the coil changes should not be a problem.

    Power, voltage, current and maybe 20 other variables are measured by PCE-830 which is very specialized equipment for this. The same was also used in Lugano. It is directly interfaced with my controller so it is receiving the data in realtime in period of 0.5s.
    It is capable of measuring nearly everything you can imagine.

    How about the power (voltage) into your house/building? Is it stable over long periods? Is it AC - AC or AC - DC - AC converted before your Triac?
    I guess the PCE830 would do the correct measurements of input energy anyway, so - just asking.

    The reactor is powered through the transformer, measurement is done before the transformer so not in direct contact with the coil.
    It is AC - AC. Even if the voltage is not stable, necessary power to maintain the setpoint will be still the same.

    I assume the PCE830 calculates the real power from its own measurements. Even if the coil does change resistance or inductance, it doesn't matter as long as the PCE830 measures true RMS power, the feedback loop will compensate accordingly.

    • Official Post

    sure PCE830 and any good powermeter will measure real (active) power even if there is impedance change, and even with switching, nonlinearities.


    the limitation of those tools is the bandwidth (for PCE it is many kHz), , the slew-rate (speed of changing, linked to transient like bandwidth) and the range (avoid saturation, as avoid underscale)...


    measuring power with a RMS ammeter or voltmeter, or even both, will never convince an electrician.


    the problem of transient and HF, can be managed by checking it is low, and also because normal electric circuits are very reactive at those frequencies, so very few power is transported.


    anyway the advise is to use an oscilloscope to check the shape of the current and voltage, and to filter at least the input voltage.
    if input voltage contain few HF components, even HF current cannot transport much power.

    Thank you for the info.
    The good thing is, that the transformer will not allow to transfer HF since it is constructed for 50Hz only.
    PCE meter can show you exactly frequencies of the voltage. It can show you also each mentioned changes and variables that we can exclude any of these errors.


    I guess you can not simply take a temperature difference, its actually T^4 - Troom^4. So the temperatures must be converted to kelvin.
    See : http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.g…/hbase/thermo/stefan.html


    The reason being that the black body is radiating a power proportional to T^4 and absorbing a power proportional to Troom^4, so net radiation will be proportional to T^4-Troom^4
    Correct me if this is wrong...

    @me356: that result outside the calibration range was in my opinion too optimistic due to too many assumptions needed to trust the trend extrapolation beyond calibration data, but 42W for maintaining a temperature 300°C as currently set (whereas it was 51.7W during calibration and 49.7W at the start of the run) cannot be easily explained except for potentially the previously mentioned drifts in heat distribution. Could you test how much power is actually needed now in the 50-400°C range, in 50°C steps in a steady state fashion?

    Quote from Ecco

    @me356: that result outside the calibration range was in my opinion too optimistic due to too many assumptions needed to trust the trend extrapolation beyond calibration data, but 42W for maintaining a temperature 300°C as currently set (whereas it was 51.7W during calibration and 49.7W at the start of the run) cannot be easily explained except for potentially the previously mentioned drifts in heat distribution. Could you test how much power is actually needed now in the 50-400°C range, in 50°C steps in a steady state fashion?


    Sorry I missed the cool down part. What was the power for 400C?
    If it was 42W for 300C then the COP reached above 1.2 (compared to real calibration)

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