Some Points Regarding a Recent Presentation at ICCF20 on the ‘Lugano Report’ (Rainer Rander)

    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    You are on a reckless path to certain self destruction.


    Optris and all other IR-camera-provider recommend and emissivity of .46 for Al2O3.. but this is only correct if you measure it in total emissivity mode (2-20 μm wavelenghts), what the Lugano guy's didn't do. They used a frequency window (7.5 to 13 μm), where the emissivity is much higher!


    Further on Optris highly recommends to use a thermo-coupler to certify the measurements at elevated T's.


    Just for these two (failure) reasons, we must say that the active E-cat measurements are fake (and mostly worthless) - nothing more.


    Just stop any discussion about Lugano!

    • Official Post

    Wyttenbach,


    You summed up a complicated subject as simply as anyone by far. All in one sentence! Kind of reminds me of that Einstein quote...but don't let that go to your head. :)


    If RBO wants to continue arguing this, I would suggest he take the time out to ask Optris for their opinion, and hope they agree with him. If they do, well then TC better get back on here because the fight will be on.


    Surprising no one has done so yet (call Optris). They could have long ago laid this to rest, and given us more time to focus on Rossi's latest and greatest QuarkX. :)

    Quote from IH Fanboy

    I wonder that if all involved in the Lugano test could have foreseen the controversy that would have arisen from the use of a thermal sensing camera, they would have perhaps settled on a different more indisputable form of calorimetry.


    They used better calorimetry a year earlier, so I cannot imagine why they did such a bad job at Lugano.


    A thermal camera combined with another method would be fine. That's what they used previously.

    Shane don't fall into this trap. Instructions are crystal clear that a calibration at temperature is necessary. There really is no serious debate over this. The authors chose a convoluted way out of this lack of calibrated reference but failed to understand the band limitation of their instrument. This makes the test meaningless.

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    if you measure it in total emissivity mode



    What a nice disinformation ! There is NO total emissivity mode in any (common) camera ! Any camera has a sensitivity window that is not constant pixel by pixel and not flat function!
    Using the band emissivity would be a nonsense not knowing the exact sensitivity function for each pixel and for the mounted lens.
    The only emissivity to use is the total normal emissivity, with the proper factory calibration.
    We have pointed out already almost TWO YEARS ago all that! Our post was appeared in ECW and in the 22passi blog.


    http://22passi.blogspot.de/2015/03/gsvit-kwatz.html


    Is quite clear that there is an organization devoted to methodical disinformation.

    Quote from BertAbb

    Is quite clear that there is an organization devoted to methodical disinformation.


    An organization? What is the name of it? Where is it located? What makes you think these statements are methodical, rather than being disparate opinions of various individual people?


    This assertion sounds like an unfounded conspiracy theory to me.


    Perhaps. Or a person who uses various names. More likely the latter, plus scattered others.


    The "post" did appear in 22passi. However, it was quoted from JONP. The original:
    http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=874&cpage=8#comment-1060163



    Who is "we"?


    Here is another JONP post by Bert Abbing: http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=864&cpage=3#comment-1022856


    I notice this on E-Catworld:


    Quote

    Bernie Koppenhofer Gerard McEk • 2 years ago
    I Google "Bert Abbing" (The name on his article in JONP) cannot find any bio information, can you supply?


    Gerard McEk Bernie Koppenhofer • 2 years ago
    I tried it too, but couldn't find anything either. He probably has used a fake name. When still under the repression of peudo-science delusion one must be very brave to do it openly.


    The Abbing rants would indeed damage the reputation of any scientist, if he is a scientist, who published them openly.

    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    Slinging mud and UD by the score.


    It is FUD, by the way, not just uncertainty and doubt, the paranoid rants are full of fear and promote it. The fear may be denied and covered up as "realism." I.e., the world really is this terribly dangerous place where if you try to do anything Good, they will stop you.

    Quote from BA

    The main FALSE information they try to transmit is that when measuring a temperature with a non contact thermometer one should use the “Spectral emissivity” and NOT the total normal emissivity.


    This statement is absolutely WRONG. Due to the fact that detector sensitivity is far to be a flat function and usually differs from pixel to pixel in an IR camera all that information is handled by the internal software of the instrument and to the user is requested ONLY to input the value of the TOTAL NORMAL EMISSIVITY which is “the ratio of the energy radiated by the material at a temperature T and the energy radiated by a black body at the same temperature” over ALL wavelengths. ( you can find that in ANY textbook ! eg:G. Gaussorgues Infrared Thermography )


    So all the argumentations in the blog page about integrating only in the “measurement window” are ILL-FORMED, wrong and misleading !


    This is provably incorrect. The new alias (Randombit0 was tiresome) means you get a careful and easily comprehensible explanation.


    (1) All IR cameras have sensors with shaped (non-total) response, typically peaking in the IR band. In the case at point, 13-7um.


    (2) Whatever the camera software does, it can only infer temperature from the sensor output. There ARE cameras with multiple sensors at different wavelengths. These can do a better, though still no way perfect, job of guessing the temperature. Even they can be deceived by a non-grey body where response can vary arbitrarily with frequency The camera in this case has a single response sensor array, the output of which is the received radiance on each pixel filtered by the sensor response.


    (3) If the material to be measured is a grey body, inputting the total emissivity will exactly determine the response at any wavelength and hence the total sensor response. Therefore the camera sensor can correctly determine the sensor temperature.


    (4) Therefore if the material has a dip or peak in 13-8um response when compared with grey body ideal (that is - total emissivity), its temperature will be respectively under or over estimated. Al2O3 of course has a notable peak when compared with the total emissivity, that gets larger as the temperature gets higher.


    (5) The camera software is not told the material spectral response, so cannot know of such dips or peaks.


    If you think differently, pray tell us the non-grey-body material you have measured (like alumina at 800C for example) where this method has worked for you. Please state full details. I'm sure MFMP or others would be fascinated to investigate this apparent anomaly in normal physics. If you have any professional work in this area we must just hope that the surfaces you measure are all grey bodies because you will, for others, be making a bad mistake.

    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    You are on a reckless path to certain self destruction.


    Oh Oh ! We (about 1000 employees )are all scared by you.(a student!) ( Buh ! Treat or Trick ?)


    Quote from THHuxley

    If you think differently, pray


    Even if we are not related with "Bert", I will try to answer you.......
    You have missed totally the point ! I will try to illustrate it (again and again) for you ( and all others boys )


    Try to think that IF you are testing a normal resistor in vacuum (so no convection and conduction) in equilibrium condition the same power ( let say 100 per unit area in arbitrary units ) must flow in and be radiated. In that condition temperature is constant. Suppose that at first you have a black body resistor. Then it will reach a temperature T so that the integral on all spectrum of the emitted radiation curve ( a perfect Plank law curve ) must give 100.
    A gray body would of course have to reach a temperature so that the integral of the emitted radiation must reach 100. That is because we are in equilibrium and because the gray body radiates in a less efficient way his temperature will be higher then the temperature of a black body.
    Now consider a non gray body.Remember that for any frequency any body can't radiate more power then a black body. That is Quantum Mechanics.
    This means that if you have a body that radiates only in a window of the spectrum at a temperature T is not possible that at any frequency the radiated energy per unit area can't be higher then Plank curve.
    But if the integral (limited to the emission window) of the curve must be 100 then we have that the temperature T of the body must be much higher then the temperature T of an ideal Black Body emitting the same total power per unit area.
    All that you have from:
    1) Equilibrium conditions
    2) Quantum Mechanics.
    Total emissivity, that is the ratio of two integrals, express exactly the equilibrium condition.
    If you need we can go on. I can make a complete derivation of Plank law for you and also make a complete calculus of the integrals.


    Quote from THHuxley

    Randombit0 was tiresome


    I'm not getting tired. I was abroad working so I found the time to answer just now. I'm working elsewhere not here. :)

    @randombit0,
    The Optris does not measure broadband power. It calculates temperature based on the portion of the Plank curve it sees, which it relates to the blackbody temperature it has been calibrated to compared to the spectral operating band it uses.
    Indeed the temperature of an object would be hotter being by limited to IR output in a spectral band portion of the IR band than it would be if it were a blackbody at the same temperature.
    This means that the emissivity compared to a blackbody would be maximized in that selective region. ε may even approach 1 in this region.
    This in turn means that if the camera spectral sensitivity is about the same as the main selective IR emittance region, the ε for the camera would have to high to give a temperature appropriate to the object. Lowering the emissivity for the camera would make the temperature reported by the camera read way too high, because this tells the camera that the temperature it is sensing is low compared to a blackbody, when in fact it is appropriate for a blackbody, as far as it can determine within its spectral sensitivity range.


    So please do submit your math and integrations, so we can sort out where the mistake you are making is being made.

    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    randombit0,
    The Optris does not measure broadband power. It calculates temperature based on the portion of the Plank curve it sees, which it relates to the blackbody temperature it has been calibrated to compared to the spectral operating band it uses.
    Indeed the temperature of an object would be hotter being by limited to IR output in a spectral band portion of the IR band than it would be if it were a blackbody at the same temperature.
    This means that the emissivity compared to a blackbody would be maximized in that selective region. ε may even approach 1 in this region.


    Randombit0 has stated, with high and dismissive contempt, what is true, implying that it contradicts what others have been writing. Someone else I have seen do that is Andrea Rossi.


    Be that as it may, RB0 states that the maximum emission in any band is the blackbody emission. He puts it this way:


    Quote

    Now consider a non gray body. Remember that for any frequency any body can't radiate more power then a black body. That is Quantum Mechanics.This means that if you have a body that radiates only in a window of the spectrum at a temperature T is not possible that at any frequency the radiated energy per unit area can't be higher then Plank curve.


    With a condition, this is true. The condition is that the emission is thermal, purely the result of heat, i.e., temperature. For an obvious exception, consider a laser, which may have power emission at a frequency that is vastly higher than the black body radiation.


    A gray body is made of material that has the same emissivity at all frequencies as a black body, but at some ratio less than 1 (i.e, between 0 and 1), not the full emission, which is emissivity 1, by definition, being the maximum thermal emission.


    The Lugano report: http://www.elforsk.se/Global/O…er/LuganoReportSubmit.pdf


    That report determined a peak external temperature for the reactor of 1400 C. This was extraordinary, given the apparent appearance of the reactor, and what 1400 C would do to what was inside the reactor, presumably at much higher temperature, but it did not apparently set off alarms for the researchers, leading them to use more caution. How did they get that temperature?


    They discuss the emissivity of alumina and have a plot showing it, the plot goes up to about 1500 C. and shows emissivity of about 0.4 at the high end of temperature. That is total emissivity.


    The camera, however, does not see total emissivity, it sees emissivity in a band determined by its design, that is what is actually measured, and from this, temperature is inferred. This is quite clear from how these cameras work, and, besides, measuring total emission would be very complex, requiring a far more expensive imaging system, if it could even be done.


    How does band emissivity affect the function of temperature measurement by the camera? RB0's argument seems to be that it has no effect, and he uses complex arguments, just as the Lugano team used very complex arguments to determine power. They made untested assumptions about emissivity in determining temperature, and then they calculated power dissipation from that in a very complex way. McKubre noticed all this in his early article on Lugano. Reliance on complex calculations, with no calibration under matching conditions, bad idea.


    I just reread the article and they do not mention band emissivity and, remarkably, they do not state precisely how they determined the temperature.


    What I would infer, though, is that they set the camera for emissivity of 0.4 and read the temperature based on that.


    This could cause a maximum error if the band emissivity was not 0.4, but 1.0, within the band to which the camera was sensitive. The camera would see a certain level of energy and would infer from that the temperature, and if, making this, emissivity of 0.4 were used instead of 1.0, there would be a drastic error. The camera would be assuming low emission when it was, in fact, high. Exactly how high it was, I don't know and have not researched, but quite a few others have. 0.4 was too low, by a large measure, apparently.


    The Lugano report did not do any calibration at the operating temperature, but at a much lower temperature, and apparently making the gray body assumption had much less effect there. The claim is being made by critics that alumina is not a gray body, and that the spectral distribution of emissivity changes strongly with temperature.


    RB0 is not facing the issue, but simply creating smoke. What RB0 wrote, that I quoted, was true, but being presented as if it contradicted what others wrote here, when, in fact, it was confirming it.

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