Posts by Paradigmnoia

Patent application WO2015127263 (pamphlet 131) referencing PCT/US2015/016897 has the exploded diagram (photos) of the Lugano device. Newer line drawings have replaced the grainy B&W photos, but the original version should be still in the image file somewhere.

The wires are described as being braided in the Lugano report, but as 15 Ga in the patent application. My guess is that the braided wire is effectively/roughly 15 Ga, since 3 mm diameter wires would be very hard to make with acceptable resistance characteristics. 15 Ga wire is difficult to imagine coming in the resistance specified, even as braided smaller diameter wires, so there is some uncertainty in the actual wire size used. The wire does seem to be fairly substantial compared to what most replicators have been using.
I can't tell if the image is just too pixelated or if the braids are actually visible in the image.

Based on 15 Ga coil wire, I would expect the air gap to be not much more than 2.5 mm maximum, and no less than 1.5 mm minimum.

This in turn gives an idea of the outer diameter of the inner tube, which was supposedly plugged with a 4 mm diameter bushing containing a thermocouple. But the plug in the patent application image scales up from the photo to something closer to 7 mm.
Perhaps there was an additional bushing (already inserted), around the thermocouple probe orifice, so that the TC hole was 4 mm... and the bare hole was around 7 mm. The thermocouple entry is not depicted in the patent application exploded diagram.

Quote from Antoine10FF

Is this a known fact, a good supposition or a guess?

It is based on the exploded diagram of the Lugano device in the patent application.

I have fiddled with hot tubes a bit, and this experience leads me to believe that the "air" space gets rarefied due to the high heat, if open to the atmosphere even slightly (like a hot air balloon). If the outer void is completely sealed, or vented to the interior tube, etc., then other unforeseen effects might occur.

Also, embedding heater coils in alumina has been shown in numerous tests to result in early coil failure or tube breakage compared to those that are at least partially exposed to the atmosphere, and free to expand and contract.

Antoine10FF,
The cross section diagram should have an air gap where the "alumina?" arrow points, surrounding the inconel. Whether it is actually air is open to some debate. At high temperature, it may be rather rarified in there, or H could be in there to some degree, etc.

I will quickly add that there is an old US patent (application?) for a method and formula whereby a significant reduction (5 to 10%; something like that) in the mass of wire needed for a specific resistance per unit length. Essentially, the ideal single strand wire is determined, then a formula determines the ideal diameter of two strands with a specific number of twists per unit length that duplicates the resistance performance of the single strand, but is more durable and uses less total mass of wire. This results in a significant cost savings in a mass-produced item using calibrated resistance wire. It may extend to mass reductions in other types of cables, with appropriate modifications to the formula.

1.23 Ohms is consistent with 3 resistance sections each of 0.41 Ohms in a delta configuration, where the DC equivalent circuit is a series arrangement, excluding leads outside of the delta (R1 cables), and the nearly insignificant resistance of the R2 leads.
I also asked Rossi about the resistance in the patent application, since it does not correspond with any wire type I could find. That is why I asked for clarification on the wire size. Wire of a different size might make more sense with the resistance specified. 15 AWG is an odd size, but is similar to a somewhat common European specification of 1.5 mm diameter wire. The older British wire gauge size 15 is close enough to the American version that it doesn't help with the roughly order of magnitude variance with any resistance from anything I could find in that wire size. With braided cables, things are a bit more complicated, but not exceptionally so. A braided cable will have a greater surface area, which may improve heat dissipation.

H-G B:

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The combined resistance for the three resistors that I calculated from the data is very low, 0.821 Ohm.

This resistance you have determined is consistent with a wye circuit, where two resistances of roughly 0.41 Ohms each are electrically in series for each conduction period.
The very low resistance is consistent with the coil wire gauge size mentioned in the patent application, which seems to be 15 (AWG?) for the Lugano device. The application is not very clear on this point, and I asked Rossi if he would clear up the messy description, but he replied that his patent attorneys would have to look at it and fix up the patent application if necessary, but he would not clarify the section personally.

I'll try roughing up the surface and see if it is the surface structure that primarily controls the reflection, although the alumina surface is not currently shiny, just very smooth. (It is a dull bone white, rather than glossy.)

Actually, the red laser was mostly reflected, not dispersed. This is easily seen when pointing the beam with the outer edge of the spot a fraction of a mm from the edge of the alumina. No red light was found in the alumina, scattered or leaking next to the point. (I.E. no red glow visible on the edge surface.) Perhaps a tiny amount was absorbed... But reflection is the primary mode, followed by transmission. The tiny dot of laser light can light up the whole interior of an alumina tube quite easily by shining it inside, oblique to the axis of the tube.

Urban Eriksson, I do not dispute that the Lugano test is seriously flawed. I do dispute the assumptions used in hypotheses about what the device was actually doing, since the real data is so poor. Simply modelling a complex device as if it were merely a solid stick of alumina is a gross oversimplification, and can only lead to grossly oversimplified conclusions. Conclusions that are only applicable to the limited case regarding only the assumptions used. That does not mean that any particular conclusion, including the one derived by Thomas, is wrong per se. There just is not enough information to prove or disprove that any conclusion is, ahem, conclusive.

"With three parameters I can fit an elephant"
- Lord Kelvin

Thomas:

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Perhaps you'd like to give evidence for these assertions, which are not true.

Which assertions are not true, in your opinion?

Sorry, having some edit problems for the above.
I mean that the temperature Thomas has calculated is indicative of the lower bounds of the total energy output possible from the Lugano device.

I pointed my laser pointer from my IR gun at a 2.5 mm thick pure alumina slab. The red laser spot is visible on the opposite side, although weakly. That means that with a power of < 5 mW, 630 to 670 nm light can easily pass through alumina. This is close to a strong lithium spectral line. Which could mean that if the lithium inside were to produce strong coherent light at this wavelength, it would go mostly unnoticed by the Optris camera using a 750 to 1300 nm band, and therefore it would go unmeasured. The other lithium spectral lines are much shorter in wavelength, and would definitely not be seen by that Optris. This just by way of example.
The temperature of the alumina is related to how poor the alumina transmits heat, not how much energy is contained in the device at any given moment.
Therefor I posit that the temperature that Thomas has calculated is the lower bound.

Thomas:

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Antoine - are you arguing that reactor was outputting 3kW? It is not possible, given the low temperature.

If the reactor was outputting the bulk of its heat in the wide range of IR outside of that detected by the Optris camera, then it could have been easily been outputting 3kW, or even much more. The temperature measured by the camera is not necessarily effective at measuring the total output, although it could be. But this requires that the alumina cylinder visible to the IR camera acts like a glowing pure alumina cylinder, not a device of unknown composition and complex construction, with several metals and gasses inside doing who-knows-what.

What I mean is I would be impressed if someone could build a device the size of the Lugano device and power it with 3kW, with 1.23 ohms resistance, and get any sort of life out of it. The resistance limits the wire choices. The temperature limits the alloys. The size, shape, and composition limits heat rejection of the tube body.
Makng such a thing run for 28 days would be quite the challenge. Making one last for 24 hours would be quite the accomplishment, in my opinion.

One item which may require some consideration for the electrical version of a COP of roughly 1 is, is it possible to make ceramic tube/ heater assembly of the Lugano device dimensions survive nearly 3 kW of electrical input through normally available (not special magic wire) resistance heater wire?
The area of the wire could be worked out, over a range of diameters, and 3kW divided by it to arrive at a range of W/mm^2, which could be compared to existing wire specifications.
I have not yet seen any replication attempt get even close to 1500W input, let alone double that. By the time around 1000 W is being fed in, the tubes are well over 1000 C in every experiment I have seen, or performed.

Where are all the negative COP results?
If it is mostly errors causing spurious excess heat results, where are the lossy errors?
It always seems to be excess heat, not messy heat.

That didn't look like a bet to me. It looked like a reward or prize, for the $100,000. Real science all too often costs real money. A big fat prize would be a welcome incentive to many, and would go a long way for an independent experimenter/inventor. The devil is in the details for what is considered to be proof of LENR. Most people cannot even agree what LENR is. What if it is something in between chemical and nuclear? Does that count? Do inner valence electron reactions count? Do controlled Coulomb repulsion reactions count?

I don't have a problem with prize money.

Try drag and drop for pictures from Apple devices. My pad drives me nuts when trying to edit my own posts, never mind attempting images. I revert to my PC to do anything complicated. If Apple put cut-paste functions accessible to the keyboard on devices, I would be very pleased.