I can't find from the discussion anything that can explain the Mizuno's result as normal and still IH did not manage to replicate.
That has not been discussed. I do not think anyone knows why IH was not able to replicate. Mizuno's result was not "normal." It was anomalous, and difficult to achieve. It is reportedly somewhat easier to achieve with the procedures described in Appendix A.
Jed Rothwell said
"Mizuno's result was not "normal." It was anomalous,and difficult to achieve. It is reportedlysomewhat easier to achieve with the procedures described in Appendix A.
Mizuno wrote
"We have tested a Pd on a pure Ni surface. We are currently testing with this method. We will describe these results in more detail after enough results have been obtained. In this paper we described only about heat generation. We also analyze neutrons, gamma rays, transmutation, gas analysis and gas isotope analysis. We mainly analyze the correlation between these results and heat. We are preparing to publish a paper on these results. "
I am quite sure that the reason for developing the refined reaction material preparation procedure is
because there have been a number of runs where there has been no or much less excess heat.
I don't think Mizuno has been "at the beach" much at all but has conducted in the order of 100 runs, not just a few.
I don't think that the lack of an aircon leading to maximum variation of inlet/outlet temps of 7 degrees in 24hours ,( say 0.5 degrees per hour) is a significant factor as long as the variation( less than 2% or so) in the inlet and outlet air properties are taken into account,(which apparently Mizuno has done) and the summation of the inlet/outlet air enthalpy differences is done in increments of around 30 minutes.
I look forward to the preprint of the new paper( 2017?, 2018?)
Mizuno wrote: "The atmospheric pressure was calibrated [should be "measured" I think] with a commercially available barometer made by Sunoh company and humidity by a measuring instrument made by Empex company. There was no significant change during the 80 ks measurement period."
For sure, but Kirk's argument was that one man's "no significant change" is another person's "significant change". I tried to quantify the maximum possible error due to a change in humidity, and got an answer of 14W. (With a little help from Kirk, funnily enough).
My view is that potential error can be regarded as insignificant, when compared to Mizuno's 100W measured output.
Zeus 46 "got an answer of 14W.. can be regarded as insignificant"
It was good of you to attempt to quantify the effect.
In my view 14W or 19 W out of 100W is significant. But relative to the magnitude of the excess heat it is insignificant.
I calculated that the maximum humidity effect is way less, than what you have calculated....
of the order of 3 or 4W
But my calculation may be an overestimate too.
It is probable that Mizuno has already accounted for the humidity in his calculation method,
together with other effects which are well documented online.
and since he measured, temperature, pressure, and humidity
Currently in Sapporo 19 deg, 1015 mbar 67% humidity,
Re significant/insignificant: Yes, maybe that's a better way of wording it.
I did see your workings, but didn't fully check them - they might be right/better. But, because I'm not sure that using those graphs handles everything correctly, I'm not completely confident of quoting them.
(And also, I don't see how my workings could be wrong, but that's a different story 
)
Maybe we just have a different idea of what is the 'worst case'?
Zeus46 said "I did see your workings, but didn't fully check them"
ditto.
the worst case is where people quibble over quibbles.
life is short
any physics research is complex because of all the different parameters
many which are tricky to estimate/measure
Below is one page from Tsiringlis about the specific heat of moist air,
which shows that the Cp of 60C moist air can be 16 % greater than dry air.. but its not that simple
I think that there are many other parameters..emissivity density. etc which have variations
Mizuno has compensated for much for these by using the
calibration reactor.. which I would call a control reactor.
"The design, size, weight, and shape of this calibration reactor are exactly the same as the reactor used for testing.
The internal reactants are the same nickel, of the same weight, size, dimensions and position.
Both are washed and wound the same way. "
except of course the'same nickel' is not quite the same...
and there's the rub..
which shows that the Cp of 60C moist air can be 16 % greater than dry air.. but its not that simple
RobertBryant I agree. For instance, I think that at some point one has to figure out the absolute humidity, which then becomes constant throughout the change in air temperature.
Not according to Wikipedia...
"
Absolute humidity is the total mass of water vapor present in a given volume of air. It does not take temperature into consideration. Absolute humidity in the atmosphere ranges from near zero to roughly 30 grams per cubic meter when the air is saturated at 30 °C (86 °F).[4]
Absolute humidity is the mass of the water vapor {\displaystyle (m_{H_{2}O})}, divided by the volume of the air and water vapor mixture {\displaystyle (V_{net})}
, which can be expressed as:
{\displaystyle AH={\frac {m_{H_{2}O}}{V_{net}}}.}
The absolute humidity changes as air temperature or pressure changes. This makes it unsuitable for chemical engineering calculations, e.g. for clothes dryers, where temperature can vary considerably. As a result, absolute humidity in chemical engineering may refer to mass of water vapor per unit mass of dry air, also known as the mass mixing ratio (see "specific humidity" below), which is better suited for heat and mass balance calculations. Mass of water per unit volume as in the equation above is also defined as volumetric humidity. Because of the potential confusion, British Standard BS 1339 (revised 2002) suggests avoiding the term "absolute humidity". Units should always be carefully checked. Many humidity charts are given in g/kg or kg/kg, but any mass units may be used."
So...catching up...
All the efforts on humidity and density are laudable. My point was that Mizuno should have described what *he* did in his paper. I also note that it is likely these considerations are not the primary cause of the apparent excess heat signal. My point is that this kind of examination must be done for *all* experimental variables used to compute the 'answer', whatever that may be in your case. That's what the propagation of error calculation is for.
I am still concerned about the jump in room temp (which is the Tin value of the deltaT term of the mass flow calorimetry equation) in Fig. 20 which hasn't received much discussion at this point. The jump almost perfectly cancels out the expected cool down curve that would show in the output temp. *And* the jump is right where the power to the reactor is turned off. That correlation is highly suspicious. (That's why I jokingly asked if a window had been opened.) Fig. 23 shows another case, but only the first 1-2% of the cool down period is shown. Being pre-disposed to see a problem, I note a change in behavior right at that point in the Tin value. Then in Fig. 26 we see a similar but less dramatic reoccurrence of the Fig. 20 behavior. Again Tin starts climbing right when power is cut, when it had been on a nice downward trend immediately before that. This suggests to me some serious electrical problems. Those problems need not be constant day-to-day or hour-to-hour, so I feel it also important to know the time sequence of the experiments. I also note that the control runs sounded to me like they were separate from experimental ones, which means all the electrical connections were 'fresh' between the two sets, which means we may have an error present in the experimental runs and not in the control ones (or vice versa, or even from one run to the next).
When a similar observation was reported to Ed Storms in Jan., 2000, he checked and found grounding issues. He redid his wiring setups and reran the experiments. I think Mizuno should check his setup for similar problems. (Might be why IH couldn't reproduce his work.) These are just suggestions at this point. I have no way of knowing if Mizuno has these problems or not. But the jump in Tin when the power is cut could mean that before the power was cut there was an artificial signal adding in that went away...
Note that I'm not saying 100% of the Tin signal could be artificial, just some significant fraction. A separate measure of rom temp might be useful (electrically separate especially.)
The attitudinal difference here is typical, and informative.
We have a non-replicable report of significant excess heat which we can't see any killer error in. It is uncontentious to say that either there is some highly unusual exothermal mechanism here beyond what is normally considered chemical, or there is some unknown error in the experiment or the assumptions which underlie its calorimetry.
It is a mystery.
My view of that is that it deserves and requires replication, but that if the replication comes up negative then it is likely an unknown error, and that is not surprising. Errors happen.
Others will propose some unknown difference in the materials tested that make one iteration of this experiment positive, whereas multiple others are negative. And point out that this is typical for LENR results.
I'd agree that it is typical, but also that it is indistinguishable from unknown experimental error.
Those who already think LENR likely will fit this new datum to "more evidence of LENR with operation dependent on not yet understood electrode preparation".
To move further I'd want to know more about how clear was Mizuno that with his tests a given electrode would work. He, presumably, could replicate the experiment with multiple electrodes prepared this way and obtain a success rate. If Mizuno find this to be 100%, and he prepares the IH electrodes similarly, it is strong evidence that this is experimental error. If Mizuno finds success rate partial (say 50%) then two failed tests from IH mean nothing, as I'm sure IH would realise. Preferably an electrode could be re-used. Again, if Mizuno can re-use an electrode obtaining a positive each time, but the same electrode re-used by IH gives a negative, we have strong evidence of error.
What saddens me is that this type of common-sense analysis is not presented, together with the write-ups. It is what is normally done when extraordinary results are found. You go back and check everything, then try to replicate. Why is it not done here? I'd like to know whether IH have given up with M or whether they feel their negative testing is inconclusive and want to go further, but I suspect from Dewey's post that IH have little confidence there is anything in this positive result from Mizuno given their interaction with him.
What KS and TTH say!
Ground loops, stray EMF's and spurious signals of all sorts, easily creep into low level electrical measurements. A while back, a colleague and I designed an instrument for evaluating certain parameters related to divers in a chamber at great simulated depth. The environment contained all sorts of motors and communications gear which radiated energy. The contractor chose two providers for these instruments-- us (a small private company) and a major university lab. We undertook a very conservative approach using relatively low impedance circuitry with lots of shielding and built in precision calibrators. With our device, it was easy and convenient to check proper function by briefly interrupting a run. The university selected off the shelf instrumentation with vulnerable high impedance inputs, unimpressive filtering and only external calibration which could not be performed during a run. Guess whose gear worked and whose didn't? The badly designed instruments provided spurious readings at times, which were very difficult to discern from valid signals. You can't be too careful when designing and building (or specifying) low level measuring equipment. Rude surprises lie in wait at every turn.
Of course, high power outputs from LENR sources, with little or (especially) no power in for sufficiently long times, would solve all these issues immediately. Pity we don't get them.
And people like Shanahan and those who work with nickel hydrides in various industrial processes have to worry about LENR being real because if it is, it could cause them to experience a fat explosion, sometimes with very toxic/radioactive materials being involved.
kirkshanahan wrote "And* the jump is right where the power to the reactor is turned off."
Here is a more mundane expectation.
No electrical jump ..but a thin-skinned human
This human came in to the lab about 6.00 in the morning
from a warmer bed room
or a warm futon.
to disconnect the 100w heater near the reactor.
They switched on the room heater.. this may well be a Rinnai gas heater as it is in my house
The room air temperature rose 4.5 degrees over a period of 3 hours.
The fact that the outlet temperature only started to rise about 1.5 hours later
is due to the thermal inertia of the warm reactor.
I have two females in my house who persist in turning on the
gas heater when it is 19 degrees or so.
which is why will I pack it away in two weeks time.( early Spring)
Japanese saying "目の上のたんこぶ"
For these two females I am something of a "lump in the eye"
Here is a more mundane expectation.
No electrical jump ..but a thin-skinned human
Entirely possible. The reverse of the open window I was mentioning. We need to know....a separate room temp measurement might help. But technically you have a problem with your calorimetry if this is happening, including the two-hour delay thing. Tin and Tout are supposed to indicate what's going on in the calorimeter.
JedR has posted to Vortex re: Mizuno's spreadsheets. I excerpted the following:
"Here is a preview.
The three are:
BND60513.xls This is data from Year 2016 Month 5 Day 13. This is an 80 W
excess heat run shown in Fig. 28.
BND60519.xls 2016/5/19 The 120 W excess heat run, also in Fig. 28.
BND60526.xls 2016/5/26, The 248 W heat in Fig. 28.
I need the calibration tests with no heat. I don't think I have them."
So what's the weather like in Japan in May? I'd guess the room heater might be more realistic.
Okay, here is a spreadsheet converted to Google format:
https://drive.google.com/open?…r0UahtG1ZPAJmAJmejB6EMipY
This is: Mizuno, T., Preprint, Observation of excess heat by activated metal and deuterium gas. J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci., 2017. MizunoTpreprintob.pdf, p. 19, Fig. 28, 120 W line
Let me know if you can read it. And copy, work with or download it.
This still needs work but I have added some notes, converted the numeric formats to something more reasonable, and made some other changes. This is a conversion from the Excel format.
This is a little repetitive and odd-looking because columns A-R are basically the raw output from the data logger. I think some channels are NIU (not in use). I marked them.
The graphs did not convert well. I left one graph. This is part of Fig. 28, p. 19.
I added notes in Row 8 describing what I think the columns represent. I left some question marks in there for things I do not understand, such as some of the constants.
Anyway, you can see the actual arithmetic used to generate the graphs.
If Mizuno find this to be 100%, and he prepares the IH electrodes similarly, it is strong evidence that this is experimental error. If Mizuno finds success rate partial (say 50%) . . .
I agree with this, but if the success rate were 50%, the skeptics here and elsewhere would dismiss the results. They would say that failure rate is unacceptably high, even though it is much lower than the failure rate for things like early transistors, rockets in the 1950s, and cloning. (Not to mention the failure rate of particles collided to produce Higgs bosons, which is ~9,999,999,999 out of 10,000,000,000.) (Note: that's a joke.)
then two failed tests from IH mean nothing, as I'm sure IH would realise.
They probably don't mean much.
Preferably an electrode could be re-used.
Nope. No can do. The electrode nanoparticles are fabricated in situ in the reactor and cannot be exposed to air or removed. The electrode resembles the filament in an incandescent light bulb. (Remember them?) That is one of the reasons it (apparently) works better than electrodes prepared outside cells and later transferred into them. That step contaminates the electrode, even when it is done in a glove box in nitrogen and the other usual precautions.
USA + JAPAN + (Airbus DS)
True, and I don't miss.
Quoteif the success rate were 50%, the skeptics here and elsewhere would dismiss the results. They would say that failure rate is unacceptably high
Complete straw man and nonsense. Nobody with any ability in science would ever say that. You are confusing the issue of frequency of positive results (no issue) with the issue of replicability by independent third parties (very much the issue). Failure rates don't matter at all for proving whether a phenomenon exists or not. However they matter very much if you are planning to market a product.
