Flow meter used in 1-MW test

1st Official Post

    I stated here several times that in my opinion the flow meter used in 1 year test of Rossi's 1-MW reactor was probably in error. It probably over-estimated the flow. I said that in the data I have seen, it measured 36,000 kg of water every day, exactly. I found this number impossible to believe. I was not free to explain the problems with the flow meter. In the response filed by I.H. in response to the suit, there is a letter from an I.H. expert, Murray, to Penon. This is Exhibit 5, Case 1:16-cv-21199-CMA Document 29-5.


    https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/g…tex/files/Rossi_v_Darden/


    Read this exhibit carefully and you will know everything I learned about the flow meter from Rossi's data, and more. Let me quote part of it:


    Quote

    The turbine flow meter used for your measurements was manufactured by Apator PoWoGaz. The model number is MWN130-80-NC.


    The Apator PoWoGaz’s device label clearly states that the unit has a minimum operational flow rate of 1.6 m3 /hour. That is a minimum of 38.4 m3 /day. Using 977.8 kg/m3 as the density of water at 70º C, the minimum operational mass flow rate measurable with this sensor is 37,548 kg/day. With few exceptions, your daily valuation reports reflect a flow rate clearly below this level. How can the measurements of the flow meter be valid when they are consistently below the minimum operating value?


    The flow meter requires that the entire pipe volume be full of liquid to function properly, as described in the Apator PoWoGaz Operating Instructions [section 6.6 in document I-EN-2- 003/2013, Operating Instructions, Flange water meters DN40 - 500]. The visible iron stain waterline marks on the static vanes indicate that the pipe was not continuously full of liquid, as required by the manufacturer’s specifications, but rather had a substantial portion free of liquid. See Exhibit A. How can the measurements of the flow meter be valid when the pipe volume was far less than full?


    Some time ago, I said that the meter data shows exactly 36,000 kg per day. In the interview with Lewan, Rossi hinted that this is a round number, and the actual amount might be 35,792 kg (for example). From the specifications of this meter, you see that this is not a round number. This flow meter measures in increments of 1,000 liters. That's the minimum reading. There are several problems with this:


    Rossi and Penon claim that it clicked over 36 times every day, or once every 40 minutes. EXACTLY once every 40 minutes; exactly 36 times a day. Not 35 some days, 37 others. That's ridiculous. Even if the flow was remarkably stable, surely there would be days when the instrument clicked over at 5 minutes to midnight (37 times that day), so the next day it would click only 35 times.


    As you see in this exhibit, Penon recorded this flow rate of 36,000 L for every day in the ERV, including days when the reactor was not operating.


    More to the point, a flow meter operated well below its minimum recommend range will give the wrong answer. In my experience, when instruments measure below the minimum threshold, they tend to measure too high, tending toward the threshold.


    Also as described in the exhibit, a meter that is supposed to work with a full pipe will give the wrong answer when the pipe is half empty.


    Those are the two main problems with the meter. I believe there may be others. Both of those problems are described in the Omega guide I referenced earlier:


    http://www.omega.com/prodinfo/flowmeters.html


    Quote

    The accuracy requirements should be separately stated at minimum, normal, and maximum flowrates. Unless you know these requirements, your flow meter's performance may not be acceptable over its full range. . . .


    Expected minimum and maximum pressure and temperature values should be given in addition to the normal operating values when selecting flow meters. Whether flow can reverse, whether it does not always fill the pipe, whether slug flow can develop (air-solids-liquid) . . .


    In other words, these are known problems, described in the literature and in the manuals for the flow meters affected by these problems.

    No, this is Penon's job. I'm pretty sure that it was part of the agreement to have the equipment calibrated before and after the test.


    For a test to determine a payout of 89 M$, anything else would be foolish. And IH is no fools, right?


    So those data should be available.

    Quote from nuclearNut

    No, this is Penon's job. I'm pretty sure that it was part of the agreement to have the equipment calibrated before and after the test.


    For a test to determine a payout of 89 M$, anything else would be foolish. And IH is no fools, right?


    So those data should be available.


    Essentially, people's brains have been soaked in Rossi Says for a long time, and keep on assuming what he said.


    There was no $89 million payout to be determined by this use of the 1 MW reactor. This flat out was not the Guaranteed Performance Test. Rossi tried to unilaterally create that.


    In order to survive the Motion to Dismiss, Rossi had to pretend estoppel, that IH had consented to this as the test. It appears that long ago, they knew not to do that. What they consented to was the sale of power to the "customer."


    I really wonder ... who was paying those power invoices? Where did that money come from?


    There is nothing in the Agreement about calibrating the equipment.


    How about, as an exercise to recover from Planet Rossi Syndrome, reading the Agreement itself instead of guessing what is and is not in it or depending on what "everyone" is saying about it.


    All the case documents are in the Rossi v. Darden filespace for newvortex. See https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/newvortex/info


    Yes, you can get the Complaint and some of the other documents elsewhere, but the only place, to my knowledge, where they are all together and sorted and annotated for easy access is on newvortex.

    Quote from nuclearNut

    Besides, there ought to be calibration data for the flow range that it was run at during the test.

    Jed points to two problems with a flow meter: one is running it below the rated flow, which means that the rotation rate of the vanes will be low, and could be erratic.


    Worse than this, perhaps, is that it was claimed there was evidence from an examination of the flow meter than there was air or steam in the water feed, which would could cause a high overstatement of flow rate. To be accurate, the meter needed to be full of water, no air or steam.


    Remember Rossi's "generous" instruction to Penon, as claimed to Lewan, to disregard the inlet water temperature? What if the output steam was simply routed back to the inlet? Steam at the inlet would cause a drastic overstatement of flow, plus if it was actually live steam, it would then cause overstatement of generated power, since some of the fluid would already be evaporated. I don't know if Penon followed that instruction.


    The basic point, that Jed made quite some time ago, is that flow meters can, used improperly, present misleading readings and they could even be drastically misleading.

    Quote from nuclearNut

    No, this is Penon's job. I'm pretty sure that it was part of the agreement to have the equipment calibrated before and after the test.


    For a test to determine a payout of 89 M$, anything else would be foolish. And IH is no fools, right?


    So those data should be available.


    Checking the calibration with a full pipe, above the minimum flow rate, and with all other recommendations followed, the flow meter could easily pass perfectly.
    And still that would not mean that it was used correctly where it was installed.
    Testing it with water up to the rust line, just below the minimum flow rate (or whatever was recorded), now that might be interesting.

    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    Testing it with water up to the rust line, just below the minimum flow rate (or whatever was recorded), now that might be interesting.

    Yeah, if it were needed to recover the actual flow rate, that would be a way to attempt it. However, this could vary greatly, and, bottom line, once a test is as badly impeached as this is, cheaper to do it again and do it right. At this point, I'm not sure I'd bother doing anything with the 1 MW plant, beyond putting it away somewhere and then donating it to the Museum of LENR, for the exhibits on fakes and frauds and errors.


    For the future of LENR, which I do think is a big part of the energy future of humanity, it is crucial to confront the "fakes, frauds, and errors." There have been plenty. Especially errors, on all sides.


    To move beyond all that takes what Darden called "crushing the tests." No more room for Maybe or Fuzzy Results. What is the heat/helium ratio in the Fleischmann-Pons experiment? Inquiring minds want to know if there is a correlation and if the value is as has been found in the past and confirmed. Those are scientific questions, deserving *numerical answers* with error bars and the whole nine yards. And that is part of what IH money might be going to, I'm not certain, but it's plausible.


    Crushing the tests. No more excuses.

    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    Yeah, if it were needed to recover the actual flow rate, that would be a way to attempt it. However, this could vary greatly, and, bottom line, once a test is as badly impeached as this is, cheaper to do it again and do it right.


    Heck, no. I want to know how variable and terrible the meter can be. I want the maximum and minimum terribles.


    Re-doing the Plant test.... LOL. No thanks.

    @Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax


    You posed the question:


    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    I really wonder ... who was paying those power invoices? Where did that money come from?


    Not sure if you noticed, but I believe IH may have put into question whether they were ever actually paid that money (and Rossi never actually claimed they were paid it, just that it had been agreed they would be paid).


    Here's the relevant claim from Rossi's original suit:


    Quote

    64. On or before August 13,2014, ROSSI and LEONARDO located a customer in
    Miami, Florida, who agreed to allow its facility to be used for the Guaranteed Performance Test
    and even agreed to pay IH up to One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) per day for the energy
    produced by the E-Cat Unit during the Guaranteed Performance Test.


    And here's IH's response:


    Quote

    64. Defendants deny that the “test” referenced in Paragraph 64 – meaning the operation of the Plant in Doral, Florida in 2015 and early 2016 – was the “Guaranteed Performance” to be performed under the License Agreement. Defendants deny the allegations in Paragraph 64 as to Plaintiffs locating a customer in Miami, Florida who agreed to allow its facility to be used for a “Guaranteed Performance” test. The company Plaintiffs “located” for Case 1:16-cv-21199-CMA Document 29 Entered on FLSD Docket 08/06/2016 Page 12 of 66 - 12 - the test referenced in Paragraph 64 was a company closely affiliated with Plaintiffs (J.M. Products, Inc.) that had no actual use for the steam produced by the Plant, and thus was not a “customer” for the steam power to be produced by the Plant. Defendants deny the remaining allegations in Paragraph 64.


    Emphasis added is my own.


    We do know from exhibits 17 & 18 that there was an agreement in place for IH to get paid, but whether those payments were ever actually made to IH might still be to be determined.

    The argument from nuclearNut here that in spite of provable egregious errors in the setup, correct calibration "must have been done" by Penon, and if not IH "are fools" does not wash.


    There can be no expectation of any good practice from Penon/Rossi.


    IH have documented how thye did not control experimental conduct, and how their wishes were not followed. Further, it is clear reading between the lines that they did not hire high powered technical help until quite late in the day, when they became certain enough that Rossi was taking them for a ride. Was that foolish? Probably, but also the sort of mistake that gets easily made and is easily in hindsight criticised.

    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    If the flowmeter went back to the manufacturer, they would certify that it was in proper operating condition. This would not provide any calibration at the below-rated flow. This meter was operated out of the
    device specifications, such that the rotor was turning lower than the design rate for accuracy.


    The so called Exhibit 15, "showing that the flowmeter (MWN130-80-NC) did not", work is an other cheap cheat.


    Nobody knows who wrote that accommodation paper... His skill level was about ABD's or that of other FUD'ers of this forum.
    This "writing person" did also have no clou about the physical principe behind a condensation driven steam flow. You really need no presure above atmospheric it could even be lower.


    E15: The visible iron stain waterline marks on the static vanes indicate that the pipe was not continuously full...


    If during a test phase you let the water stay for one or two days, then that's exactly what might happen. The flowmeter was located at the
    deepest point of the waterflow. Either the whole pipe was empty or...
    Usually you fill a closed circulation with deionized water.. => no marks. If not, then the 1 MW site was sole a test site...


    Further: There was no way to look at the inside of the water tubes... We would like to see a photo of Exhibit C appended to Exhibit 15!


    The really cheap cheat: E 15: The Apator PoWoGaz’s device label clearly states that the unit has a minimum
    operational flow rate of 1.6 m3/hour.




    The manual say's: Minimal flow rate is 0.3 m3. (Greetings to JED)



    Final conclusions:


    From Exhibit 18, we learnd that AR delivered between .75 and 1 MW and IH new this.
    From Exhibit 5: We know now that IH is simply cheating the jury...


    It is therfore easy to guess, if once the judge sees this simple blunder, that he will kick this gang out of the building...


    This will happen even if we know that AR did cheat as everybody is cheating.
    We just watch, may be, a very poor orchestered APCO/DOD show to make the public claim, everything is running as they should believe...

    Wyttenbach the 0.3 minimum you describe is for MP130-80-NC. The model described by IH is MWN130-80-NC which is indeed 1.6. Do you mean IH have given an incorrect model number to cheat/lie or is this just an error on your part?

    JNM - that is 1.6m^3/hour. you need to multiply by 24 to get the m^3/day measurement. I agree W also got the model wrong, but that is only a relatively small error!
    regards, THH


    PS - W seems to have said the same thing on about 4 threads and i missed linking this one. Here is my previous analysis. please check it! we all make mistakes, though W seems better at it (on evidence here0 than most.


    The Industrial Heat Answer

    Quote from THHuxley

    JNM - that is 1.6m^3/hour. you need to multiply by 24 to get the m^3/day measurement. I agree W also got the model wrong, but that is only a relatively small error!
    regards, THH


    Yes TC: You are absolutely right about this. My figures are from the MP 130-80-NC version of the flow meter, which looks absolutely identical to the MWN version.


    If You can present a photo of the flowmeter with the tiny tag mounted to the 1MW plant than I will delete my post...


    Nobody so far has seen this tag... It's crucial...

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