Useful laboratory technique

Many people of commented on the difficulty of getting an accurate temperature measurement by simply attaching a thermocouple to the surface of the reactor. There is a better and far more accurate way to do it. That is a so called "thermocouple well" or "thermometer well" . The idea is to have an stub like indentation into the reactor into which the temperature measuring device is inserted. In ordinary chemical reactors it is not uncommon to have a well several inches long in order to get into the main flow or site of reaction. The wall of the well equilibrates with surrounding reactants thereby leading to an accurate measurement at the stub end of the well.

As for shielding, I have used more than 2" of lead to give a factor of ten protection from several MEV gamma. See the Physics Vade Mecum for tables of shielding requirements. For the specific case of a LENR reactor, I suggest that the reactor itself be surrounded by several inches of sand (silicon dioxide). The sand provides additional shielding. If sand is the only shielding, upwards of a foot or two of it will probably be required, with a much reduced amount of lead outside. It is probably experimentally convenient to provide an observation steel pipe through the sand with a steel or lead plug loosely fitting inside when not in use.

I don't know how the ecatX works, but I speculate that by providing two anodes (or cathodes) each connected to the ends of a split phase transformer that the system will self oscillate. It is often convenient to wind high frequency transformer with bifilar wire (two of them). Connect opposite ends of the two wires together and to the power supply, the two remaining ends are the split phase that go to each duplicated electrode. Electrical power can be extracted by winding a third winding over top the bifilar winding . Depending on the output voltage desired, it will probably be convenient for the third winding to be fewer in turns and heavier in wire cross section. Send that signal to a full bridge rectifier for output.

For safety, be very very careful about hydrogen leaks. It is notoriously difficult to contain. Chemical explosions with it are are common. Vent everything you can think of to the outside, including vacuum pump exhaust, over pressure valves, etc. A fan ventilating your lab is also a good idea. Watch out for switch sparks igniting a hydrogen-air explosion. Hydrogen is almost unique in that only a very low percentage in air is needed to cause an explosion (perhaps 2%) if my memory serves from long ago.

As for neutron shielding, boron is a classic. Borax from the washing powder department at the grocery store will do. Several boxes thickness would likely be required. This is a difficult calculation problem. Remember that neutrons are neutral and go through almost anything and then diffuse in air similarly to hydrogen. Thus the diffusivity is quite fast. Thus you need a neutron absorber on all sides. Neutrons can be all speeds and boron only absorbs a certain medium low speed range. Thus to do a really good job you need to add cadmium shielding to absorb the low velocity neutrons. Sand will do only a so so job of slowing fast neutrons down to boron and cadmium absorption ranges.

Additional thoughts:

A better neutron moderator would be any temperature resistant mineral that also contains hydrogen as part of the compound. Hydrogen best slows high speed neutrons.

The aforementioned split phase transformer would best be wound onto a medium frequency ferrite toroid. Ferrite cores are widely available. Even Amazon carries them. You probably would want a low to medium frequency composition for the toroid ferrite. It might even work to take a long strap of sheet metal such as used as strapping for heavy packages. Heat and slowly cool the strapping, then wind it into a toroid spiral. Insulate then apply the windings. Cheap but it would work.

Upon further thought, shielding would probably be more than adequate with a steel fox (let's say 3/16 steel plate) around 3 to 4 feet on a side. The steel on the outside is more convenient than lead. Lead for medical X-ray tech protection booths is commonly 1/8" for soft medical xrays and is available from plumbing supply stores. That won't stop gamma. That is what the steel,very thick lead or sand is for if you use no or little sand.

Mixing borax with the sand is probably not a good idea because sand and borax is a dandy formula for GLASS. If you have a meltdown, you would end up with a gigantic hunk of glass.

So, weld together a steel box, fill half way with sand or other mineral such as mortar (mortar contains water of hydration, and hence hydrogen), insert observation pipes, thermocouples, reactor etc. Then cover all the way to the top with more sand. Steel 3/16 plate weighs about 7.65 lbs / sq ft. Put steel legs on the box to a convenient working height. Attach a few electrical receptacles for convenience. Also attach cooling plumbing. Surround the box with borax if you think neutrons are an issue. Provide supporting shelves on the box for the borax boxes. I don't know whether neutrons are an issue, but, it has slowed me up in my work.

Paradigmnoia, The Barite (Barium sulfate) is a good idea. It could readily be mixed with the sand. Good to know about lead sheet from roofing companies.

The choice of shielding material depends both upon high temperature resistance and also upon shielding capability for the various types of radiation.

I am now thinking that silicon carbide instead of sand would be a superior choice. Carbon is a good neutron moderator. SiC is also highly temperature resistant. It is so resistant that I'm thinking that pressurized gas cooling is the way to go. That could run a nice Stirling engine. Figuring out how to make a sealed high temperature fan or pump is challenging. Maybe just nitrogen cooling with a passthrough shaft bearing would work. Helium is obviously better, but leaks with that expensive gas is the issue. Mixing the SiC with barite is a good idea. The proportions depend upon whether you are concerned more about Mev gamma (favor barite) or neutrons (favor SiC). Soft X-rays e.g. 75 eV , will be negligible after going through all this stuff. SiC grit is available from Tractor Supply or any place that does sand blasting.

My bro got some old elevator weights from the junkyard. I think they are around 1 1/2 inch thick. So we will cut them up with an oxygen torch to make bricks to be stacked very near the reactor itself. Really thick piping would work. If memory serves, Graingers sells hollow cast iron hollow cylinders. Or get a local cast iron foundry to make up something. Stacking graphite blocks near the core would be good for moderating neutron radiation down to ranges where boron and cadmium will absorb. Charcoal briquets would be an alternative.

If using borax from a laundry supply source, don't forget that they are sold by weight, not volume. Consequently there is a lot of void space at the top. Therefore cut a small hole in the top, fill the void with borax from a sacrificial box, tape up the hole (or Elmer's glue with cardboard. The boxes will be outside the steel box lagging so the temperature should be endurable for the boxes.

I would like my shielding box to go through a standard household door of 30" so I'm making the narrow dimension around 28" with the other dimension longer to accomodate the length of the reactor tube. Insulating lagging will go around the steel box, then the borax outside. Casters on the legs for mobility. Welded loops on the inside of the box to lift it by chain and engine crane . The loops are to be on the inside to minimize outside dimensions to get it through the door.

Nonetheless, I will probably locate the box outside far from any residence. It will be convenient to use 480 volt transformers to transform household juice to the higher voltage for transmission. Another transformer at the box to step it down again. Amazon carries such transformers.

Good question Eric Walker. The reason is that the field is secretive and reports of radiation are incomplete. Nonetheless gamma radiation has been reported by an observer at one of Rossi's early demos . On this forum me356 is reporting neutrons and plenty of other wild stuff. I believe in being cautious. The 75 ev Xrays that are widely reported by many experiments are nothing to worry about. That is easily shielded by thin lead sheet or steel. Cathode ray televisions at 60 KV used leaded glass for shielding.

I once worked on neutron shielding issues for a submarine where someone had incautiously designed in a pipe that went from the reactor area to a crew area. The neutrons went down the pipe and were the source of concern for the project I was on. In other words, unexpected things happen.

My existing shielding is just very thick lead. I want something better that can also withstand high temperatures. Lead melts easily. The design I have talked about on this thread I would feel more comfortable about if 4 feet on a side. I'm compromising with 28 inches, i.e. 14 inches to the center. That will be enough to limit extreme danger. High energy gamma is very hard to stop. Fortunately, LENR doesn't seem to generate much of it, if any. Because experimenters will be using many different active reaction materials, the gamma spectrum might be anything, so past reports are not necessarily valid for future gamma. I'm just trying to provide something tobe better than air between the experimenter and active core.

Barite used for drilling muds is contaminated with strontium. I don't like the idea of create radioactive strontium. Therefore either a different material, or else highly purified barite would be best.

Since this is a thread about laboratory technique, not only about shielding, let me point out the utility of using DIN rail mounting for simple electronic components such as relays, timers, power supplies, etc. A good example of this can be seen in the recently posted video of Krishchanovich's titanium heat experiments. The DIN rail is mounted on a wood board above the reactor. A little bit of the rail is visible with the rest of the rail with clipped on components that are probably power supplies, relays, timers, etc. DIN rail and clip-on components are available on Amazon. All are inexpensive.

As for the reactor shield again, I'm thinking that once all the steel is welded together that it will be hard to make modifications for apertures. Some apertures, such as for RF connectors, DC connectors, pipes are all obvious enough and can be prepunched or drilled before welding. But ... some future modifications are not obvious before welding. Therefore, I'm thinking of making a few pre-punched holes that to be covered with an easily removable steel plate that can be removed for machining when needed. Most holes will be located at the mid-line level plus four more on the bottom for air cooling. I plan to put a bolt circle around the punched hole with bolts spaced closely enough to prevent 2.4 Ghz from getting through. There are ISM bands at 2.4 Ghz and also at 6.78 Mhz (and others).

Tentatively, I'm thinking of using a 1.5" EMT conduit punch for the holes. The nominal 1.5 size is for the conduit. The standard punch for 1.5" is a larger diameter to accomodate the EMT connector. This implies a bolt circle of about 8 holes with maybe #10-24 screws. I might later to decide to change the size. Greenlee punches do up to 10 gauge. I plan to use 11 gauge, about 1/8 " for the box. That implies 1/2 " square bracing bars along the bottom and maybe 1/3 up the sides with a surrounding horizontal belt of 1/2 at the 1/3 level. I'm avoiding angle iron bracing in order to keep the lagging close.

Air cooling I plan to be U-shaped conduit with holes coming only through the bottom so that nuclear radiation leakage will be directed downward. This implies a U-shaped air channel internally to cool the shielding and core. I'm slow at my age, so blueprints are not yet available, but I'm putting this out there so that others may benefit from this preliminary thinking if they are going ahead with a shielded reactor.

A load of sand in the contemplated shield would weighs almost a ton and more with barite or SiC. So I'm thinking a lot about how to brace the relatively thin 1/8 sheet. It now occurs to me that the bracing can all go inside. That would allow angle iron or flat iron on the edge to be welded inside. Trying to keep down the outside net size.

Alan, I am fortunate to have large dimension properties to do experiments. I fully expect that LENR will eventually be safe to use inside a residence or in a pit nearby. That is not the case now until the process is fully understood.

It is universally known that we humankind do not yet have a complete theory of physics. A simple example of this is quantum entanglement. Although quantum mechanics can describe the effects quite well, the explanation for "spooky action at a distance" remains speculative. Most people assume extra dimensions. There are other explanations too. We don't know.

Anyway, it is best to confine theory to a different thread.

Here is a useful laboratory technique: do NOT use monazite as a means of activating the LENR reactor. Monazites vary a lot in their content, but almost all of them contain an impurity that will transmute to something you really don't want to have around your delicate biological body.

If you want to use alpha particle activation, it would be safer to use thoriated tungsten welding rods. They are available in up to 2% Th. If that turns out to be relevant to igniting your reactor, withdraw the thoriated rod after ignition. Thorium and tungsten also create nasty transmutation products. That is why I'm including a control rod tube into my shielding design. I'm just going to drill a 1/2" hole in the shield outer wall, weld in a 1/2 steel tube of sufficient length to reach the center reactor core, then insert a 5/16" rod for mechanical control of anything.