And though Rossi still I think claims the Lugano reactor works I expect he knows by now that it did not.
What about [lexicon]Industrial Heat[/lexicon] and that Woodford Capital? Do you think they also know that the Lugano reactor did not work? I think we at the forum are starting to get your message ;), but maybe you should share you findings with those who have actually invested a lot of money in this. And of course let us know if you get any response.
@Thomas Clarke
Don't forget also that your thermal analysis (which also is my current understanding) can be wrong. I find it very difficult to understand if there are any further considerations with this transmissive, yet diffuse, outer tube material made of alumina. If there is a smaller but warmer heat source in the interior, how will that affect things? I need some time to think about that.
If there are no problems with your Lugano analysis and one also considers the isotope analysis of the ash, then there are of course several different fraud theories to choose from. Either Rossi has been "frauding" all along, or he just discovered before the mesurement error himself before the Lugano test ended and switched. I'm not so good at making up fraud theories, and maybe we don't need them? Time will finally tell what is working and what's not.
wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-…30-percent-efficient-leds
The article referenced describes a LED that converts heat (lattice vibrations) into light while rapidly decreasing it bias voltage. While maybe interesting physics, I don't think it is that relevant in this context, or is the Steorn device supposed to "draw heat energy from its surroundings"?
@Thomas Clarke
Despite uncertainties I think I will count the Ferrara test as a positive datapoint, since there are as far as I can see no apparent signs of fraud, and to me the mesaurements of input and output power looks reasonable (and in fact Ericsson&Pomp do not criticize the electrical input power measurement as such). If you assume those to be correct, basically that is all you need to reach a positive conclusion. However I still think that Lugano was a null result, which was very interesting to learn and I thank you for bringing that forward.
Regarding power/integrated energy of the PCE-830, the following quote on page 6 implies integrated energy:
"By reading the images reproducing the PCE-830's LCD display at regular intervals, it was possible to make a note of the number of kWh absorbed by the resistor coils. Subsequently, the E-Cat HT's average hourly power consumption was calculated, and determined to be = 360 W."
Others places refer to instantaneous power. My guess it that you obtain both on the display.
(
(2) double wires inside one sheath going to reactor.
Possible, I suppose. Don't know if it is compatible with the dummy run though. Maybe the double wires must have had been removed by then?
Regarding the Ferrara tests, I have read the Ericsson&Pomp criticism and I think they have valid points, although I don't found any single point particularly severe. I found the heat diffusion simulation of the cylinder interesting, and they seem able to prove that some statements in the Ferrara report are wrong.
About the actual report It was said here earlier:
I guess that in this case the output power measurements, while flakey +/- 30% or so, are OK. The input power measurements however are much less certain.
I tried to focus on the input power measurements when reading. To me it did not look that complicated. It looked like they hooked up a voltage probe and a clamp ampere meter on each of the input leads, and then let the PCE-830 work out the what power was supplied to the device. I found this picture on the web:
http://www.ecat-thenewfire.com…2014/11/Fig7_Patent_3.jpg
It should then be straight forward to work out if the device is a pure resistor or seemingly generates excess heat.
For the March test (HT2) they say they have a control box between the PCE-830 and the reactor. The power consumption of the control box affects the result somewhat but can not as I see it nullify the result.
To be honest I can have misunderstood a lot of things here but I think things look a lot better than the Lugano test, at least if you consider the report only.
Just for completeness of this thread, does anyone know if there is a good summary somewhere about the problems with the Ferrara test? It was just metioned briefly in the initial post, and it would be nice to get a bettter understanding of what exactly it was that was criticized.
@Thomas Clarke
Thank you for your clarification. Now I understand (although it seems obvious now) that the emissivity below 7.5µm does not really affect the temperature calculation of the Optris camera, and the temperature calculation is the main source of the error. And since the alumina is almost a black body above 7.5µm there are no big sources of error to be expected for that part. Emissivity below 7.5µm will affect the total radiated power, but if the temperature of the reactor is low, variations of that part of the emissivity will not "save the situation". So unless new data or theories are presented that changes one's understanding, at least I will accept that the COP of the Lugano report was not very high. Once you acccept that I can understand that the question of the isotope analysis, your point (6), becomes very hard to understand, but I don't want to discuss that because I feel I have nothing to contribute there.
@Thomas Clarke
I think you have done a very good investigation if it was you who discorvered this!
Points (1)-(4) feels very solid and can be double checked by anyone. Point (5) I cannot completely agree with you. I don't think you can assume that the reactor has the same emissivity curve as pure alumina. What if the alumina is largely transparent at certain wavelengths and there is Lithium vapour within the tube? How would that affect the emissivity over wavelength and the COP calculation? Can we really be certain without having measurements on the acutal device? Maybe we can, but I would appreciate if you cold perhaps elaborate a little more on that so that I can understand. Point (6) feels a little bit out of place, can we really get anywhere discussing this?
I would have liked to see some more measurement data on the actual device in order to say something definitive. Like for instance the spectrally resolved emissivity or, as has been suggested, measurements with thermocouples. Now the reasoning is based largely on table values for alumina. However it looks clear that the thermal calculations in the report were not done correctly.
I did a simple numerical integration of the Planck black body radiation law from 7.5 to 13µm, for a number of temperatures ranging from 500 to 1500C. Then I assumed that the band emissivity times that value gives the magnitude of the signal in the camera. I can then see that using 0.4 times the black body radiation for 1400C gives about the same result as 0.9 times the black body radiation at 770C, so the used value for the emissivity plays a huge role for determining the temperature. Could it really be the case that the Lugano reactor was only 770C, or could there be some other mechanism involved that affects the spectral emissivity? How about the fuel itself if the alumina is rather transparent at certain wavelengths?
@'Thomas Clarke
I find your comments on the thermography of the Lugano report quite interesting to read, even though I have not absorbed everything yet. Just a quick question. In the Lugano report, figure 7, they show an image with a referene "dot". If that is taken with the heat camera, should it not have shown more equal temperatures between the dot and the background, since the "band emissivity" of the alumina and the TiO2 are rather equal for the wavelength range of the camera? They claim that they use an emissivity value from literature, which is quite different, to get similar temperature. Or have I misunderstood something? This area is completely new for me.
