@ Eric Walker
I'm aware that no betas would be expected outside the cell. I was just answering a question from Mats regarding what my instruments could detect.
Regarding Axil's comment, I'm not sure a cloud chamber could be kept working in close proximity to a Glowstick at 800 C. It would have to be well-shielded from IR and probably refrigerated by a cold plate. I'm open to offers if anyone has one to loan, or plans for building one at reasonable cost.
@Mats
My GM counter is a basic instrument that detects beta particles (fast electrons) and gamma (high energy photons) in the range 0.1..3.0 MeV. It's pretty sensitive and has data output which is nice. The Sodium Iodide Spectrometer detects the same range of energies and particle types. It also measures the energy of each event using a photomultiplier tube and digital software. This feature helps characterize the possible source of emissions.
Neither of these instruments can detect massive slow particles like alphas or neutrons. The alphas are not likely to pass through the cell wall. The neutrons are the real issue and detecting them is tricky. Then there's muons - we've talked about how Holmlid (and Sveinn) detect them, and the possibility of building a replica.That would be a separate experiment and venue though.
Mats, I have a NaI Gamma Spectrometer (thanks to a generous donor) with 200 kg of lead around the detector. It runs during all fueled experiments. The aperture for the detector is visible in the live camera of the video stream.
So far we have seen only background.
To summarize the results of previous testing, we collected good data for loading of H2 into pre-baked Nickel powder, with a final loading ratio of 0.012 by mass. In the next test I replaced the Nickel fuel capsule with one containing only Alumina. We found that a considerable amount of gas came out of the cell contents when heated, with a final cell pressure of around 3 atm.. Some of this may have been from de-loading of H2 trapped in the inner surface of the Mullite cell tube. Most of it was probably water vapor trapped in the Alumina powder, which is hydroscopic.
Following this finding, I did a lengthy bake-out of the cell at up to 800 C. This was done with vacuum, reaching ~80 microns at the end. After the cell cooled (under vacuum) it was sealed and left over night. The pressure rose to ~3 psia in 12 hours, suggesting either a small leak or additional trapped gas. the cell was pumped out again prior to adding H2 to 13 psia for today's test.
The experiment is just getting started. After renewing the thermocouple attachments, we're now doing a formal calibration of the cell, still with dummy fuel (Al2O3) and Hydrogen starting at 13 psia. This series of fixed power steps will establish the base line comparison of the active vs null parts of the cell. Initial steps at low powers can take an hour or more to settle, and this also cures the cement attaching the thermocouples, before higher temperature is applied.
We'll also be looking for any further evidence of extra gas coming out of the cell components. The full calibration sequence will take 4-5 hours.
@H-G The CCI Compact Fusion controller has a unique control mode they call "Zero Cross", whereby a varying number of complete half-cycles of conduction are interspersed with a varying number of skipped half-cycles. Power is controlled by varying the ratio of these two half-cycle counts. Sample waveforms and a segment of the coefficient table used can be found on page 7 of the Compact Fusion manual.
An example for one phase is visible on the PCE-830 display image in the Lugano report. This image is usually mis-identified as phase angle control.
I built a SIMetrix (spice-like) simulation of this control system to see how it would work on 3-phase power. In this simulation output image, each phase is a different color. The simulation is configurable to show several different cycle patterns. Let me know if it might be helpful to your analysis.
@padam73
My estimate for the volume is 6 ml, so loading was ~.012
The question is HOW to get higher loading, and that's what this experiment is aimed at. Higher temperature didn't seem to work. Maybe some heat/cool cycles would help.
Several sources have stated that the pressure should be no more than 1 atm for proper loading. That can be tested up to 10 atm with the current setup. It all takes time...
@Ecco "Can the heating wire accept a much greater load than 1200W for a very brief amount of time? (for example with a capacitor bank discharge)"
Yes, certainly. But the wire has to supply heat as well as stimulus in this scenario. The power source I'm testing is a Behringer iNuke 6000 Class D amplifier (I couldn't resist it with that name!). If configured for bridging (differential) output, It can theoretically supply 6 kW of short-duration pulsed power. This could be (for example) 10 usec full-scale pulses at 10 kHz repetition rate. That would represent a 10% duty cycle, or 600 watts average power, enough to heat the cell core to ~1000 C.
@me356 For this series (GS5.2), no stimulus is planned other than thermal transients. I can power the heater with an arbitrary waveform up to 30 kHz and 1200 watts, but the B field will be much less than the 1 Tesla described by Piantelli. I have a plan for direct electric stimulus of the fuel capsule, but that will have to wait for GS6.
There will be a new blog post at QuantumHeat.org, rather than clutter up the existing and already long GS5 thread. There's also a chat sidebar at the streaming link I provided, for real time discussion.
The first GS5.2 test is now under way. The cell is loaded with pre-baked Hunter AH50 Ni powder but no LAH. The system was evacuated to 40 um and Hydrogen added to 15.2 psia. After some settling time, I'll heat the cell to ~180 C and let it sit for an extended period. Hydrogen loading into Nickel is a slow process, so not much will be happening except (hopefully) a gradual drop in the Hydrogen pressure.
The live data and video stream (with chat sidebar) is available at:
http://magicsound.us/MFMP/video
Here's a picture of the cell components before assembly:
Mats, the Hydrogen state discussed in that article probably isn't relevant to LENR. Their experiment used a pressure of 3 MILLION atmospheres at room temperature. Can a discrete breather (or anything else) in the lattice generate such extreme conditions? Seems unlikely.
Here's an important paper co-written by Hora with Miley's group and Mark Prelas (SKINR). It was presented at ICCF17 and talks about Rydberg clusters and several other familiar topics. Axil has probably seen this one...
http://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/STAFF/VISITING_FELLOWS%26PROFESSORS/pdf/LENR Korea ICCF-17 Poster.pdf
Two of the references cited are by Holmlid.
Axil, you're conflating magnetic and electric fields. A pure Iron rod won't support ferromagnetism much above 60 hz because of hysteresis and eddy current loss in the material. Ferrite might do it but the field alignment would be much reduced. So why Iron? Its Curie temperature is much higher than that of ferrites - Iron remains ferromagnetic to over 400 C.
There's no need for a soft iron rod if your proposal is for RF stimulus; for that I would use coax feeding thoriated tungsten electrodes, and tune the circuit (including the complex impedance of the fuel mass and its capsule) using a resonant tank circuit with a variable cap and an swr meter. This is a form of RF induction heating.
I proposed this GlowStick enhancement back in June, to add magnetic stimulus. The field model supplied by one of you (Ecco) shows the magnetic field would be well focused in the fuel mass, with field strength of 1 tesla or more possible. High frequency AC magnetic field would not be possible due to hysteresis loss in the Iron:
The 98% pure 1/8" Iron rod is about $140 for the one meter length required. It's on my list for the next experiment.
The shadow effect hasn't been visible in any of the Glowstick tests. However, I did notice that if the coil expands so that there is contact with the outer cover at some spots, those places show a darker color but higher spot temperature (measured with an IR device), compared to nearby spots. I attribute that to the wire actually being cooler at those spots due to thermal conduction into the cover. The cover material gets hotter there as a result.
@Paradigmnoia.
The cell in the image was the Dogbone replica with the outer coil cast into the finned body. The core was a 3/8" ID alumina tube into which I inserted a finely wound Kanthal heater coil. The core power as shown on the PCE830 display was 650 watts at the time of the photo.
The best explanation I've come up with for the back-side shadowing is that the wire of the outer winding has lower thermal emissivity than the cast body. Thus at identical temperature, it emits less visible light than the surrounding ceramic. Admittedly far-fetched but the best I could think of.
Here's an image from the MFMP Dogbone test replicating the physical structure of the Lugano reactor. Heat is being provided by an inner coil, replacing the fuel core. The shadow of the non-powered outer coil winding is clearly visible. What's interesting is that both sides of the outer coil are visible as shadows. Can you explain what caused this?
We concluded that the images from the Lugano report did indeed signify a source of visible light (and possibly heat) originating from inside the heater coil, brighter than the coil itself.
@Thomas Clarke
Our estimate of Lugano COP was based on Higgins calculations, after discussion. For my own work, I claim an error band of ±10% in thermal measurements, and ±1% in power. As I've stated before, I need to measure at least 20% excess heat before I would claim any positive result. I've not seen that in any of my test and therefore consider all of them to be null proofs.
Experimental science is an iterative process and each of my runs has produced improvements in technique and understanding of the system. As I pointed out to Ed Storms, even a null result is useful in that way.
@'me356
Regarding Parkhomov's cement, he gave us (MFMP) the formulation and I tried it several times, but was unable to get it to seal hydrogen, due to micro porosity. See my online note for details:
http://www.evernote.com/l/AXem…FyblbYyTSrJdswl9cGew0w4k/
At ICCF19, he told me several coats, individually dried were needed. I had already tried this, and found that Parkhomov's cement formulation will not bind to alumina:
http://www.evernote.com/l/AXeK…FMpLYlLx85OpP_c-MaaApbfs/
We then asked him "what kind of ceramic are you using?" and found it was some kind of mullite but further details weren't available.
By then I had started working with Swagelok aluminum ferrules, with good results. But for GS4 I tried a mullite tube and found it deteriorated and became leaky, finally breaking after about 100 hours. I attribute this to the reaction of molten Li with the silica in the ceramic. Pictures of this are included in the GS4 report at:
http://www.quantumheat.org/ind…log/502-glowstick-gs4-run
But you could be right, that a certain critical leakage rate is needed for this design to work.
