New reactor design - transparent and spark triggered

With appropriate attachable heater/stimulation coils and exchangeable caps (optional without or with tungsten electrodes), this would be the general purpose experimentation device of my dreams.

I hope you make a product of it.

Quote from Hank Mills

My guess is that for the sparks what would work best is high voltage low current longitudinal impulses. You would want the spark to be as high powered as possible for the very shortest duration.

One of the best and most well vetted ways to accomplish this is with a Blumlein (named after radar developer and polymath, Alan Dower Blumlein, Brit, around WWII). This can take several forms but for UV lasers written up in the Amateur Scientist section of Scientific American, one has a spark gap triggered discharge stored across a capacitive pair of conductive (Cu) plates insulated by the best dielectric available (best are PTFE, but thin two sided conventional circuit board is fine). The discharges are in the low 10s of nanoseconds, the potential differentials are on the order of several thousand volts (breakdown of the two sided circuit board often used). The Blumlein can also take the form of a spark-gap shorted coaxial transmission line, sometimes referred to as a drop-dead line. Once one becomes familiar with the technology, it can be morphed into a variety of forms.... the common element being very high peak power and very rapid discharges. They can be set to repeatedly discharge and recharge on quite a rapid basis. The advantage there being that whatever threshold power is necessary to accomplish the electronic (or nuclear?) transitions of interest can be repeatedly reached without having the average power burn out the whole system. The peak powers can easily reach giga watt levels on the bench due to the extremely short (~10 ns) duration of the discharges. Your discharge times are set by the length of the transmission line / channel plates--- that is 30 cm are about one nanosecond.

LFH Sam,
How about Electric nail? E-Nail?

Reference for electric nail? Or more detail. Thanks.

Quote from Hank Mills

My guess is that for the sparks what would work best is high voltage low current longitudinal impulses. You would want the spark to be as high powered as possible for the very shortest duration.

What is the goal of this design? Produce placebo heat or just look for a nice spectrum?

Quote from LFH Sam

Alan is working on a new (transparent) reactor design.

Since the R.Mills (about 50 papers), Parkhomow (about 6 papers), Mizuno (ICCF 11 p. 161) et all's experiments it is well known, that low voltage and high current is the key to successfill LENR reactions. High current leads to a high B field which is able to align protons/deuterions and thus forming a kind of condensed "readberg-matter".

But be aware of wearing sunglasses and UV-protection cloths!!!

"We could really do with some help coming up with a suitable name for it."

SPARKY (short for: Spark Producing Arcing Kitty)

Ahah! A moment of clarity.

A few weeks ago, me356 built two experimental reactors, A and B. A was like his prior work and, unfortunately, overheated quickly. B used tungsten rods to arc in a hydrogen atmosphere to create a plasma discharge. B lit up all the alarms for nasty byproducts and me356 warned us not to go near that approach. It glowed with neutrons for days. "Don't do this at home."

So what have we here? Similar design, different electrode metal.

Perhaps this is a ploy to get me356 to come back to the lenr-forum and post another dire warning to stay away from high voltage discharge in a low pressure hydrogen atmosphere.

Also Defkalion placed spark plug into its reactor from good reason. But it's always better to expose the nickel negative charge, which attracts & implants the protons, not just vibrates it.

As occurred with defkalion, a spart given reaction will produce most of its LENR energy as x-rays rather than heat. As per Mizuno a nickel plate with a large surface area used as the anode will produce spark excavated micro-pits where the LENR reaction might take hold.

Longview if you meant me with the E-nail It was in reference to Langmuir and the tungsten arc experiments. It seems we are heading this way.

Wyttenbach.

Quote

What is the goal of this design? Produce placebo heat or just look for a nice spectrum?

Not sure what you mean by re-think it.

Axil seems to think that this (spark) kills the superconducting reaction (if I understand this properly ... sorry Axil if I did not express it or am wrong)
Rigel wonders what ME356 said when you could start the reaction with hitting it with a hammer. Surely a spark provides a high energy field in both directions (E and B).
What do you mean by a nice spectrum? Certainly it will be broad but as I mentioned above Langmuir had anomalous results.

http://newinflow.ru/pdf/Klimov_Poster.pdf

This reference is a spark based system that is gainful. It produces a ton of x-rays but also good heat. The intensity of the x-rays decrease as detection distance from the spark increases.

This might mean that the cause of the LENR reaction is traveling inside the plasma flow. If the LENR cause can be protected from the magnetic fields produced by the spark, then less x-rays and more heat will result. If the spark can be magnetically shielded with a faraday cage close to the spark and still let the cause of LENR through the shield's porous structure, may be more heat will be generated and less radiation.

Try covering the spark in a nickel foam to shield the LENR reaction from the spark.

Alan Smith, in a future iteration, I hope you guys will consider a modified version of this discharge tube with something weakly radioactive that has beta or alpha decay as decay modes. (By contrast, nickel has electron capture and, theoretically, double electron capture.) Three possibilities come to mind that should be obtainable: potassium, tungsten and thorium.

Careful, or you will make an X-Ray tube.
4 kV isn't too bad.
20 kV and tungsten, and an X-Ray tube is pretty much guaranteed.
Edit: I just watched the video again. 400 kV! Yikes.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

20 kV and tungsten, and an X-Ray tube is pretty much guaranteed.

Yes -- this is voltage sufficient to accelerate electrons up to 20 keV and thereby excite tightly bound electrons. I think nickel electrodes will produce x-rays as well. The presentation mentions 400 kV sparks.

High voltage may be useful for seeing excess heat. Perhaps the apparatus can be given adequate shielding?

I am certainly interested to see what happens. A little worried, but excited.
I guess they know what they are making, and are preparing for it.
The conversion rate to X-rays is usually low, and the spark might not be as efficient as a dedicated electron beam, so maybe it won't be super nasty. But it sure has the, ahem, potential to be nasty.