Rossi vs. Darden developments [CASE CLOSED]

No excess heat

Quote from SSC

I agree with you. Indeed I wonder why Darden asked Rossi to continue with the test, after having declared that the GPT was unrealizable because of the time lapsed, and promised him money in case of good results, without writing a new contract. He has testified that this proposal was said by word of mouth. Perhaps he considered useful the fact that in this way they were no longer bound by a contract to respect?

I'm glad you ask. By this time Darden had ample evidence that Rossi would not be bound by any contract. From the IH summary of material fact (referencing source documents) 15-17, 43-45,47,48. Rossi having so broken the contract would in fact mean that IH were not bound by it, but you can see Darden wanted to give Rossi every possible chance to demonstrate working product, after all they had paid $10M for the IP and still hoped it might have value, so given Rossi's repeated begging requests and statements about a large commercial customer who wanted to rent energy and would validate the energy so supplied (56-59 - so many source references you will need to pick these up from those paragraphs) I guess he thought: one last time.

Quote from SSC

Maybe they didn't came to negative conclusion, considering that they used a more reliable measurement method.....maybe their previous results (COP 5, 9, 11) were the right ones. It's clear that after the suit those results have become troublesome and so it was more convenient to declare that they were measurements errors.

This is logically wrong. If IH had achieved working product from Rossi they would be sure that they had a world-beating invention. They had already enormous capital on board (Woodward) and given in-house validation of a commercial product could have easily paid the $89M, so what would be their motivation for not doing this and allowing Rossi to sue them at some later time?

EDIT - I see Bob got there before me. But I have more factual references to source documents! The IH summary of material fact is a great resource. Rossi's equivalent rather less so because his arguments do not have much in the way of credible supporting facts...

Quote from Bob

My point was that Darden could NOT change the GPT test paramaters as it required Ampenero's signature. Ampenergo did not sign.

Indeed, and Ampenergo confirmed in their deposition that they didn't sign the amendment. Apparently, there was some money for them if the GPT worked out, and they didn't think at the time that the amendment was favorable to them. (which I find a bit weird)

However, I believe that the original licence would have allowed IH to extend the test. The agreement says the 400 day period commenced on the day following delivery of the plant to the company.

However, IH could extend that period as quoted below:

Quote

(as such time period may be extended by the Company in its sole discretion),

THHuxleynew

Your first post back gave Abd a run for the money. It is very long and yet manages to miss my core point, which is: IH raised at least $50 million and possibly as much as $250 million in investment capital during the 1MW test at least partly on the basis of the way they represented it to their investors. Do you really think Darden told them "we're giving him one last shot at this because we haven't been able to get it to work." Or in your words:

Quote from THHuxleynew

I guess he thought: one last time.

Your ability to produce a huge wall of text while avoiding this central issue is impressive.

Also:

Quote from THHuxleynew

Joshg says that IH now has a scattergun approach towards the errors and issues.

No, I don't recall saying anything like that. It was LENR Calendar who talked about IH flinging poo.

And as for this:

Quote from THHuxleynew

Josh does not like IH's own documented statements about Rossi technology. Initially enthusiastic and later turning dark. This is I think a better candidate for something that smells.

Again, my main problem is how they raised investment capital off the back of Rossi's 1MW test. Are they conspiring to kill, delay or discredit LENR? I don't know. In my mind the jury is still out, and this lawsuit won't settle it. Did they act like slimy businessmen? Sure looks that way to me... Does that mean they deserved to get out-slimed by Rossi? No. But I wouldn't exactly paint them as innocent victims.

Quote from THHuxleynew

@Zeuss46 (sic)

Would you like to read my post with the calculations which I notice you never replied to, and do not now quote? I wonder why?

Then you could attempt to provide a reasoned argument for why I was wrong (as I asked).

Huxley, you nutter, that was my reply to your post of calculations. I quoted the conclusion: "Wong was wrong". Then said I "totally agree" with you. I even apologised*!

That's fairly unambiguous, no?

So I think you must have misunderstood me, as I find the majority of your last post makes no sense at all - suggesting I am making, or need to make, some kind of "case" means that either you misread me or I miscommunicated...

And my money's on the first seeing as how you repeatedly misspell Zeus46.

But since you asked:

Quote from THHuxleynew

Since I also agreed with the 200W/m^2K figure (for moderate transverse flow) you are misrepresenting the issue.

[snip....some weirdness about asking me to prove my case to him...]

And it requires no more than a bit of playing with a web calculator more informative than one that classified speed as moderate rather than some specific velocity.

Firstly, as I said, "I used the same calculator", not some other one as you appear to think. Secondly if you agree with 200 W/m2K being reasonable, you are wrong... Simply because the required airspeed needed to achieve that value (for a 150mm pipe) could never be described as "moderate"... 90mph! Yes that figure is achievable at moderate airspeeds for much smaller pipes, but that's beside the point. But I know you understand that, as you hint at it in the section I cut out of your quote above.

So to summarise: I agree with you (it's really not hard to understand this), but since you seem determined to have an argument:

Quote from THHuxleynew

Then you could attempt (sic) to provide a reasoned argument for why I was wrong

And you could attempt some better reading comprehension.

Quote from THHuxleynew

There is no need to get worked up over this.

How ironic.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Where did Wong go wrong? In assuming the heat transfer of 200W/m^2 from moderate airflow. The airflow here is necessarily low because of the design of the heat exchanger.

Wong really needs to explain from where he got this 200W/m^2°C heat transmission coefficent value.

(OPPO Concutibita Termica ?).

Following engineering tools available on Internet, this value is one order of magnitude lower.
For example, you could calculate the heat transfer coefficient for a pipe in turbulent air-flow with this tables.
https://translate.google.com/t…_gase/wuebergang_gase.php

Or you can calculate the heat loss of a bare (or insulated) pipe by this formulas:
http://cheguide.com/tag/bare-pipe/

Well, the above ones might be a little bit time consuming and troublesome.
However, the lazy ones can just download this excel file...
http://cheguide.com/wp-content…_Loss_Insulated_Pipe.xlsx
... and calculate the heat loss for 1m pipe with 150mm diameter, operating temperatur 101°C, ambient temperature 30°C and 1.4m/sec "windspeed" [*]

The resulting heat-loss will be at the range of 620W per meter pipe.
So, for a total of 220m of pipe, it is about 140kW.

[*]

The 1,4 m/sec air velocity is calculated by 50000m3/h air volume flow, divided by 10 m2 (10m * 1m "heat exchanger box" base area) divided by 3600sec.
If you want, you can double this air velocity (because the pipe obstruct some of the base area), but it wont change much on the result.

Quote from Forty-Two

Wong really needs to explain from where he got this 200W/m^2°C heat transmission coefficent value.

(OPPO Concutibita Termica ?).

Following engineering tools available on Internet, this value is one order of magnitude lower.
For example, you could calculate the heat transfer coefficient for a pipe in turbulent air-flow with this tables.
https://translate.google.com/t…_gase/wuebergang_gase.php

Or you can calculate the heat loss of a bare (or insulated) pipe by this formulas:
http://cheguide.com/tag/bare-pipe/

Well, the above ones might be a little bit time consuming and troublesome.
However, the lazy ones can just download this excel file...
http://cheguide.com/wp-content…_Loss_Insulated_Pipe.xlsx
... and calculate the heat loss for 1m pipe with 150mm diameter, operating temperatur 101°C, ambient temperature 30°C and 1.4m/sec "windspeed" [*]

The resulting heat-loss will be at the range of 620W per meter pipe.
So, for a total of 220m of pipe, it is about 140kW.

[*]

The 1,4 m/sec air velocity is calculated by 50000m3/h air volume flow, divided by 10 m2 (10m * 1m "heat exchanger box" base area) divided by 3600sec.
If you want, you can double this air velocity (because the pipe obstruct some of the base area), but it wont change much on the result.

Display More

I gave up trying to find the OPPO link. Funny that Wong, not I believe Italian, would use what appears to be an Italian language reference here?

I spent 30 minutes struggling with the same issue. 200W/m^2K is way too high. But you do find this in some references for rods with crossflow:

http://www.engineersedge.com/h…r_coefficients__13378.htm

Just these are vague and also I suspect this figure uses the cross-sectional area to the airflow and hence is pi X higher than the real average figure per surface area of the rod.

So I think it most likely that Wong confused these two figures, as well as the fact that the airflow here is low and not moderate!

PS - my figure is still lower than yours [EDIT - I think because I'm working out under conditions for 500kW transfer and hence lower temperature difference] - maybe because at low airflows we get mostly laminar flow? The web calculator I use ought to work at low air flows. It gives an average (over the cylinder surface) heat transfer coefficient that varies from 10W/m^2K up to about 100W/m^2K. Anyway this heat exchanger just cannot give anything like 1MW transfer.

Quote from Zeus46

Huxley, you nutter, that was my reply to your post of calculations. I quoted the conclusion: "Wong was wrong". Then said I "totally agree" with you. I even apologised*!

That's fairly unambiguous, no?

So I think you must have misunderstood me, as I find the majority of your last post makes no sense at all - suggesting I am making, or need to make, some kind of "case" means that either you misread me or I miscommunicated...

And my money's on the first seeing as how you repeatedly misspell Zeus46.

But since you asked:

Firstly, as I said, "I used the same calculator", not some other one as you appear to think. Secondly if you agree with 200 W/m2K being reasonable, you are wrong... Simply because the required airspeed needed to achieve that value (for a 150mm pipe) could never be described as "moderate"... 90mph! Yes that figure is achievable at moderate airspeeds for much smaller pipes, but that's beside the point. But I know you understand that, as you hint at it in the section I cut out of your quote above.

So to summarise: I agree with you (it's really not hard to understand this), but since you seem determined to have an argument:

And you could attempt some better reading comprehension.

How ironic.

Display More

Zeuss - I do now apologise, deeply.

I thought you were being sarcastic? Ah, well...

On the vexed 200W/m^2K figure.

I agree. It is much too high. In fact even 90mph does not give it. I did not emphasise this because I was going by a web calculator that did the whole thing. As you point out, There is a 200W/m^2k figure quoted for moderate speed transverse airflow over rods in a number of places - see my last post. So my best resolution for this now is:

(1) The figure varies with speed - at higher speeds you have more turbulent flow and a higher figure. This is low speed not moderate speed.

(2) The figure given as 200W/m^2k is measuring area as cross-sectional to the wind and hence pi times larger than that you would use as an average value over the rod surface. That sort of makes sense. And just shows how careful you have to be.

I'm not certain yet we have got to the bottom of this. You have to say Rossi is really good at finding experts who say what he wants them to say, and even use references in Italian language no doubt easier for Rossi himself to check...

THHuxleynew ,

I wish I felt motivated to dig into this exchanger math more, but instead I feel that it is almost as futile as trying to calculate the total number of bells on the boots of Santa's helper elves.

Quote

Your first post back gave Abd a run for the money. It is very long and yet manages to miss my core point, which is: IH raised at least $50 million and possibly as much as $250 million in investment capital during the 1MW test at least partly on the basis of the way they represented it to their investors. Do you really think Darden told them "we're giving him one last shot at this because we haven't been able to get it to work."

Josh - true - I did not answer that here, but I did answer it previously.

At the start of the test I think the following:

• IH had not yet finished internal testing.
• They still believed the Lugano profs were probably correct since this seemed to be truly independent, and they were experts, and there were 6 of them. They also had the Ferrara tests, again positive and with better controls.
• They had been able to replicate the Lugano results, but only using the same methodology. When they measured temperature a different way they got very different results, but they did not much believe their own testing yet (and I'm not sure how developed this independent non-Rossi-methodology testing would have been at the relevant time). This left them uncertain. They had two separate sets of data saying different things. They were not yet willing to trust their internal data over Lugano, especially because maybe they were doing something wrong and so had killed the elusive LENR effect. That meant they were still very hopeful, but cautiously so because of the lack of validation.

I am very sure that Darden would have fully represented this situation and specifically his doubts about Rossi, to investors. Not to do so would put him in big big trouble. He has no need to risk that, he is a wealthy individual anyway, with a high-paying job.

We have heard here from others who were IH investors and said that to them Darden appeared to be more skeptical of Rossi than was reasonable, given the positive independent results. (Perhaps somone else with a good memory can fill this in?)

Well, there is the story from the Darden depositions of the un-fuelled reactor that had positive COP results when it was tested.

I posted the excerpt a while back. Here is the link: Rossi vs. Darden developments - Part 2

Quote from Paradigmnoia

Well, there is the story from the Darden depositions of the un-fuelled reactor that had positive COP results when it was tested.

I posted the excerpt a while back. Here is the link: Rossi vs. Darden developments - Part 2

Yes, Darden's comments well represent how he knew there were issues, but did not know what the end result would be. I suspect he and others put too much weight on the multiple external tests. After all, we still don't have more than a guess as to what was wrong in the two different Ferrara tests...

Josh:

The IH statement of material facts (backed by source documents and sworn evidence) gives you a good sense of their side of the story.

http://coldfusioncommunity.net…rial-fact-supporting-msj/

You can, if you want, reckon that they are sleazy businessmen. I prefer the idea that they are going for a risky attempt to save the world and given all the risks anyway prepared to gamble (some money) on Rossi who is clearly a slimeball on the grounds that external testers with apparently credible, detailed, and cautious-seeming reports think he has something.

Your attempt to argue that therefore they are maybe themselves also slimeballs does not seem to have any evidence behind it except that you can't believe they would have been so stupid as to go on backing a slimeball.

In retrospect, everyone can see their errors.

The hard conclusion has been made: the heat exchanger never existed. And the proof? A google street view image with a timeline date of April, 2015. Nearly every IH Fanboy here (except this one) has pinned their hopes on this google street view image.

Now, let me be clear: I do not know whether the heat exchanger ever existed or not. But I refuse to jump to conclusions on the basis of a google street view image. Such images cannot be relied up on in litigation.

Here you can read about people observing that images can be taken long before the update actually happens on the timeline.

One of the most common complaints of Google street view is that it is out of date. So there is no incentive for Google to post an earlier date, and there is every incentive for Google to post the latest date possible, even if pictures were taken months in advance.

It would also be quite a remarkable thing for Google to update the entire database of street view images between April 1 and April 30, 2015. That would mean every street in every city would have to be driven with a google vehicle within a single month--an amazing feat.

I suggest that you all should be a bit more skeptical of your quick and not-well-thought-out conclusions.

There are many birds-eye angled air photos, well-dated. The widows are not so clear as in street view, unfortunately. But nothing sticking out.

Certainly no visitors have remarked upon a loud fan blowing large volumes of hot air out of the front of the building, only 3 or 4 m from the front door.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Zeuss - I do now apologise, deeply.

I thought you were being sarcastic? Ah, well...

An easy mistake to make, potentially.

I think it's just a case of the textbook convection coefficient being set for situations found in the real world... People generally don't design heat exchangers with 150mm pipes. Stating it as 200 is just a fudge that allows a shortcut to Fouriers Law, avoiding calculating the Nusselt, Prandtl, and Reynolds numbers... Which exposes the limitations.

Quote from THHuxley

Either

(1) The figure varies with speed - at higher speeds you have more turbulent flow and a higher figure. This is low speed not moderate speed.

(2) The figure given as 200W/m^2k is measuring area as cross-sectional to the wind and hence pi times larger than that you would use as an average value over the rod surface. That sort of makes sense. And just shows how careful you have to be

I think the cross sectional area thing is taken care of by empirical tweaks to the convection equations. (Its essentially an entirely empirical science).

More turbulence is great for heat transfer, so yeah... (1) sounds about right. Interestingly, even then it's questionable whether the super-high Reynolds numbers (that 1MW dissipation would require) have as much real-world effect as the equations suppose.