Posts by Paradigmnoia

Quote from Bruce__H

I agree with everything you say. This particular picture has an interesting history. IH obtained it in discovery from Rossi's lawyers. Dewey Weaver hinted that it was from Rossi's cell phone. But in one of his depositions, Rossi suddenly went off on a tangent and complained that the picture was taken by one of two people who were accompanying a Florida State safety inspector who showed up one day to check out a complaint about radiation contaminating the Doral workplace. Rossi claimed these were spies sent by IH and that the photo is the fruit of their spying. God knows how he thinks it got into the hands of his own lawyers. So there appears to be something about the photo (or a companion photo that was taken at the same time) that Rossi wants to distance himself from. I'm not sure what it is.

Whatever is going on, I don't see how the pump here could result in a pressure head at the inlet of the Prominent pumps. No pump on the JMP side could do that. This is because the pipe in the picture that is marked "Return from the black box to the E-cat" crosses over to the Leonardo side of the Doral plant and eventually dumps its load of "condensate" into a water tank with a waterline about 4 feet above floor level. The Prominent pumps have to suck up the water from that level to pump it into the Big Frankie reactors. That is their mission in life ... to suck up water form a holding tank and pump it into the reactor chambers. At least that is what is in Penon's diagram. And that is what previous iterations of Rossi's 1 MW plant in Italy did.

The image shows that the remaining several rows of pipe (in the other photo, to the left of this image, and below the pipes connected to these in this image) were not connected to the red container. So 1MW must be dissipated in just four rows of pipe, which are insulated.

The unused pipes are possibly the "mezzanine exchanger", which is not at all in the mezzanine, and serves no purpose in the black container, because it is not connected to anything. If only the left side photo was shown, it might appear to show a heat exchanger of significant size. This photo ruins that idea.

Alternately, Rossi might make a fuss about this image to distract attention away from the photo taken to the left of this one.

I wonder if there is a complete Stokes deposition available. I bet he checked out the mezzanine.

Quote from oldguy

I thought it was a faulty sensor - open. If you check the barometric pressure for Miami you will see the sensor just sits at 0 day after day even when fronts move through. If it was an absolute gauge as required by the original protocol submitted to IH it would have show the weather changed. If it was gauge you would have seen some positive and negative numbers.

Bruce__H ,

I believe the recirculatron was located in the black Pt drier/soaker serpentine pipe assembly.

To me, it looked like something installed to try and get some of the rust out of the water, by forcing flow through a filter that otherwise would flow around it. A less friendly interpretation is that it was (additionally) used to deliver high pressure, low volume water in order to spin the water meter impeller to get the reported daily water rates fixed to a desired level.

We could look at the exploded parts diagram to see how the inlet and outlet valves are designed on the Gamma pump. I assume that forced inlet flow would supply whatever the associated tubing and valve assemblies would flow against whatever pressure is in the outlet line (if any). As I have said before, the pump becomes a flow restrictor, (if it has any more restriction than the inlet and outlet hoses).

Nigel Appleton ,

Did you recieve a response to your query to ProMinent?

Quote from Nigel Appleton

While we're discussing history, was it ever determined whether the invariant pressure readings of 0 bar reported during the "1 year test" were

a) Zero bar gauge pressure

b) Zero bar absolute pressure

c) Readings given by a faulty or non-connected sensor

d) Something else.

Not that it matters; it's just something niggling at me.

TIA for any answers

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The Penon Tests Plan specified a sensor, including part number, that would report absolute pressure values. It was also not rated for the temperature of the steam. There could have been some sort of extension pipe that may have allowed the sensor to run cooler... in theory (I wonder if that just makes steam condense there).

The actual pressure sensor used does not seem to have been photographed (or at least there is no public version).

Like a whistle?

Actually, I am thinking more like French horn. How much steam is rocketing through that Pt sponge drier soaker anyway?

Not to be a nuisance on the the steam leak idea, but....

If the pipe was entirely full of water (even just some water), and under a bit of pressure, but above 100.1 C, and there was a pinhole leak somewhere in the water part of the pipe, the water would turn to steam the instant it reached atmospheric pressure, on the outside of the pipe.

If the pipe was full of only steam at atmospheric pressure, there would be no reason for it come out of a pinhole leak at all. The pressure would be the same on both sides of the hole. Imagine a pinhole in a toilet paper tube. Maybe a big hole might waft some steam out... But no hissing. Cold air would have to leak back in at the same rate the steam came out in order to leak steam with atmospheric pressure on both sides of the pipe.

If the pipe interior had lower pressure than the atmosphere (i.e. condensing), then outside air would be "sucked" in, (pushed in by the weight of the atmosphere) and no steam would escape.

Alan Fletcher ,

I believe the outlet pressures and the inlet pressures are independent of each other for this pump, rather than additive (subtracted in the spreadsheet).

Consider the operation of the diaphragm and the valve seats:

1) Diaphragm moves forward. Pressure in the outlet side increases, the inlet seal is forced shut by this pressure, the outlets seal is opened by this pressure, and so fluid moves out the outlet; the only way to release the pressure.

2) Diaphragm moves backward. Pressure drops on the outlet side, the outlet seal is forced shut by this pressure drop by existing outlet pressure, the inlet seal is opened by this pressure drop and fluid is drawn in to relieve the lower pressure by entering the diaphragm chamber.

Imagine the inlet and outlet seals are like reed valves. Both valves move in the same direction simultaneously, one opening, one closing (one valve is inside the diaphragm chamber [inlet], and one is outside [outlet]). The pressure inside the diaphragm chamber is relative to the pressure in the outlet or the inlet fluid lines, but there should be no communication between the inlet and outlet lines. Pressure in the outlet line keeps both valves closed. Pressure in the inlet line above that of the the outlet line pressure would force both valves open. There may some weak spring or fluid bypass assist to the valves, but very limited.

This suggests a minor change to the spreadsheet formula. The relative pressure should still be monitored.

Once the pump is operating at least 1 bar outlet pressure, the performance of the pump vs the specification can be evaluated. It seems that it may be under spec.

Quote from IH Fanboy

The experiments by Alan F. show that the pump under test underperforms vis-à-vis the spec. That means that when Alan measures an output of 42L/h, that is likely a conservative value. And that does not even take into account any significant head pressure. You're going to see higher than 42L/h in further testing, trust me, including with an outlet pressure greater than 0 bar.

Well that was neat. I had to go through the whole Gamma pump test thread again. I missed most of it when I was away for the summer, and then just skimmed through it after I came back.

It does seem to be underperforming. I am just now going over the protocol to see if anything obvious is causing that. Or maybe just a tired pump.

IH Fanboy ,

Note that on the first page of the pump thread, I guestimated no more than 45 L/hr at 0.2 bar.

IH Fanboy ,

Right.

So why would water go anywhere but downhill at 0 bar outlet pressure? The company has a nice correction factor that goes as low as 0.5 bar which I thought matched up pretty well with the experiments done by Alan F.

Quote from IH Fanboy

Yes they do. I think it is likely and we'll probably see that borne out with more tests. The head pressure increases the flow rate.

Of course the flow increases with head pressure. It is a "suction" pump. When the inlet pressure is higher than the outlet pressure, the pump becomes a(n expensive) flow restrictor. It is no longer metering. It is being operated out of specification if the inlet pressure is higher than the outlet pressure.

Quote from JedRothwell

That would be an improvement but the results would still be meaningless. As you see from the schematic and photos, the meter was mostly out of the water, in a mostly-empty gravity return pipe. The manual for this meter warns not to install it that way. That's what Murray said and there is no doubt it is true. Sadly, it upset Peter Gluck to no end to hear that . . . but facts are facts.

Having it pulse every ~40 minutes is ridiculous.

The water meter issue is a perfect example of Rossi's Law*

*Rossi's Law states:

The number and quality of a measurement of a Rossi device is in inverse proportion to the sensitivity of the COP calculated using that measurement.

And with all this atmospheric pressure at every measurement location, why the heck is steam or water moving anywhere but in a vector towards the center of the Earth?

(OK, that is a slight exaggeration)

IH Fanboy ,

Using an expensive METERING pump out of specification and as a overly complicated flow restrictor is just silly. That is why they don't publish the specifications for the pump when it is operated out of specification. And the tests, to date, do not indicate that double the flow rate is at all likely.

Quote from sifferkoll

Wasn't Smith that moron who translated "dosierleistung" with "maximum flow" and f***ed up all his calculations? Seems competent...

He must have read the manual.

And why the heck was the pulse sending unit, (standard on the type of type of water meter specified in the test protocol), not used? It pulses once every 100 L in the standard configuration. This would be a simple cross-check of the reported 36000 L (nominal) flow per day, as well as simplifying the identification of down times. A pulse every 4 minutes on the good days, on average.

I just changed out the original equipment spark plugs in my 2010 Chevy. Just shy of 191000 km on them. I was told that they were meant to be good for 160000 km (100000 miles) when I bought the car. They still look pretty good; barely any carbon on the insulators. Amazing.

I will harvest the tiny specks of iridium from them if I can.

It is hard to Guarantee the Performance of a machine that was reported to consume more electricity than the electrical utility supplied to it. Or that the same person doing the output measurements reports 25 % more power delivered to himself than he reported it produced. Not merely for minutes or hours, but for several consecutive days at a time. Weeks even.

IH Fanboy ,

I have some empathy for Rossi's frustration at the delay to the start of the 400 day Guaranteed Performance exercise.

I have no sympathy for his troubles after setting his course towards his unique solution to the delay.