Mizuno reports increased excess heat

Quote from THHuxleynew

That would be fine, as long as it stays on the whole time, since it will increase back pressure and reduce flow rate over when it is not there.

Yes. It should definitely stay on all the time. Don't touch it! That's the rule for any instrument that is a permanent part of a test. In the July 18 test data, I can see in the data where the people moved some instruments and made some changes to compare the instruments. (There is no harm in doing that, as long as you put everything back.)

I often go back the Wright brothers, who made one of the first wind tunnels and did precision measurements of air flow and its the effects on various airfoils, with different chambers and so on. They compiled 3-digit precision data on lift and drag, measured with a balance scale. They graphed it and analyzed it to a fare-thee-well, in several notebooks with advanced engineering mathematics that is way over my head. They did various things similar to what Mizuno has done, such as a smoke test to check for wind speed and a laminar flow, which is what they needed, and to see the effect of the air passing over the airfoils. Mizuno uses incense; they used cigars. Here is an example of their data and a graph they made, from NASA:

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k…lane/wrights/results.html

The wind tunnel:

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k…plane/wrights/tunnel.html

http://www.wright-brothers.org…el_images/Wind_Tunnel.JPG

Anyway, the part about "don't touch anything!" reminds of a comment they made. They finally had to mark the position of all of the furniture in the room with chalk, and they had to mark the positions they would stand, and keep everything in the same location. Moving furniture or people had a measurable effect on the wind tunnel results! That is remarkable sensitivity. Without that kind of accurate and precise data, they could never have designed the airplane. It was engineering from start to finish, coupled with extreme bravery and superb athletic abilities.

Mizuno has put up an elaborate set of plastic sheets and buffers on the windows and around the calorimeter to keep conditions somewhat uniform. He checks everything manually and on the computer. I am not there, so I can only check the computer data. Here is a neutron test in an underground lab, also in a plastic tent to reduce noise, I think:

https://www.lenr-canr.org/word…ent/uploads/image1012.jpg

At places like MIT and SRI they have superb environmental controls that keep lab conditions very stable. That's a big help.

The Wrights used a Richard Anemometer, from France, which is now in the Smithsonian. In case you are wondering. See:

https://airandspace.si.edu/exh…/artifactgallery/?id=5744

Quote from Brian Albiston

He said that in the flow velocity range we are looking at (2 - 6 m/sec) a hot wire anemometer would be much more accurate.

That's good to know. Thanks. I think that's what the instrument company told Mizuno, which is why he selected the hot wire one.

As I said, they recently ran a comparison with a vane type. The vane one results were a little higher. It is a little hard to compare them, but I think I am doing it right. It was maybe 16% higher, worst case. That would increase the excess heat. That can't be right, because a 16% increase would make some of the low-power calibrations show excess heat, which is impossible. They may have done some more tests with the new anemometer. I assume they did, but I don't have any additional data from it. I expect if they spent a week or two wringing it out, they could find out why it was a little higher, fix the problem, and reconcile the numbers. Maybe not. Maybe they would have to redesign the orifice? I wouldn't know. Of course you would have to re-calibrate and redo everything from the get-go if you did that.

Even if the two anemometers do not agree completely, I am encouraged. There would have to be gigantic error to "explain away" these results. They would have to be wrong by factor of 6. A 16% error cannot begin to explain that.

There are 4 major parameters to this experiment: input power, inlet and outlet temperatures, and the air flow rate. With other instruments such as power meters and thermometers, the first 3 parameters always agree to within 1%. I brought some instruments, and other visitors have brought them, and they always agree. The only parameter with a significant error might be the air speed. It is the most difficult to measure.

Mizuno plugs more than 4 parameters into his spreadsheet equations. I do a quick check using STP values. In one case, for one hour, he got an average of 84 W. I did the simple first approximation and got 89 W for the average values. Pretty close.

The only other aspect of this calorimeter that is difficult to measure, and that seems to vary, is heat lost from the walls of the calorimeter chamber. I have taken 24 hour samples of calibrations at various power levels, graphed them, and computed sections 1 hour long. The losses do vary. That has to be because of ambient changes, I think. I have found that was the case several times I looked at closely. The losses do not vary with the size of the reactor, or with a resistance heater placed inside or outside the reactor. We decided it is better to normalize to the reactor surface temperature than the power level to estimate losses. (You can use either one, or both, of course, as we have done.)

I am pleased to report a replication of Mizuno's experiment by H. Zhang:

https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ZhangHreproducti.pdf

Excess heat started at ~4 W and has now reached 9.6 W. Be careful when comparing this to the original experiment, because the mass of nickel mesh is smaller.

The calorimetry is MUCH better than Mizuno's. It is splendid.

Mizuno expressed some reservations about these results because the heat peters out after 2 or 3 hours. He thinks this might be caused by "impure gas in the reactants or slight differences in nickel." I do not think this is a problem because:

1. Zhang ran several times with a mesh that produced no heat (p. 18).
2. I think the total heat release is too large to be explained as impure gas.
3. The reaction is getting stronger between the second and third runs, from 4 W 20 kJ up to 9.7 W 47 kJ. If this were caused by gas coming out of the nickel mesh, I suppose it would fade away. He does not open the cell or change the mesh between runs.
4. Zhang replaced the deuterium gas with argon. That killed the reaction. I hope he did not clobber it permanently! Yesterday he told me he went back to deuterium, but it is still dead.

Quote from kirkshanahan

How do you know that?

Read the paper and judge for yourself.

Quote from kirkshanahan

What paper? The one you posted a link to is hardly a paper, and even after reading it, I still ask: "How did you know that?"

Read hardly the paper, and judge for yourself. If you cannot judge, you should not be discussing this.

Quote from Dr Richard

Some encouraging news at long last!

Come now. It hasn't been that long. Other replication attempts are underway, and they are making good progress.