Posts by Ascoli65

Quote from THHuxleynew

Ascoli,

That information - that the active run was perhaps heated by plasma discharge, raises issues about whether V*I is accurate.

A plasma discharge can often run with oscillating current. Depending on the PSU, maybe the voltage will be oscillating as well. In that case V*I would under-read the actual input power. This is similar to the average rms vs true rms problem. A power analyser would be less likely to under-read, but might give erratic readings if the oscillation frequency was higher than the sampling frequency of the power analyser. This would motivate measuring power on the mains input of a PSU and compensating for efficiency (unsafe though that is) plasma discharge waveforms are not always nice.

Yes, this is what I told you a few days ago (1), shortly after JR revealed that ""The excess heat run was heated inside, mainly with glow discharge."

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Jed - this you can answer. If in any of these experiments V*I is taken as proxy for power when the load is plasma, not a resistance, this is a problem.

Ascoli's suggestion is that the excess heat results in the 2017 paper were from a reactor heated by a plasma discharge - in which case V*I is not safely equal to power and those results are likely wrong.

The "plasma discharge" is not my "suggestion", it is what has revealed JR. I only suggested (2) that the "active reactor" was heated internally.

In the meanwhile JR said (3) that "That information is in the papers. These were plasma discharge experiments. How else could it be heated, given that fact?"

Please, look better at the 2017 article (4). You understand English much better than me. Can you find, where it is said that the glow discharge was used to heat the active reactor during the "Excess heat" runs?

As I have already told him (5), I saw the glow discharge procedure mentioned only in section 2.5 "Preparation of reacting material". So it was clear to me and, I guess, to anyone else that the active tests of Figure 28 were run by powering the same external heater as for the corresponding calibration runs. And this is exactly what he replied to me last month, when he denied that the active reactor of the 120W was heated internally. He said (6): "In all previous tests with this technique, both the active and control reactors were heated with an external resistance heater." Now he has changed his version.

I've the strong impression to be fooled. And you?

(1) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

(2) Mizuno reports increased excess heat

(3) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

(4) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

(5) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

(6) Mizuno reports increased excess heat

Quote from Shane D.

Yes, it does have a "conspiratorial" meaning to it. Perfectly understandable for Mizuno/Rothwell to react so strongly to it's being used to describe their actions. Very good of THH to point that out also.

I had already edited that word out, so all is back to abnormal. You can get back to stirring the pot again.

OK, thanks. This is a problem of false friends between the 2 languages. The verb "sopprimere" in Italian is often used to indicate the cancellation of a bus or a train service.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I think XXX is the wrong word: however the active data is undoubtedly different, using V*I to calculate power rather than (presumably) the Yogakawa analyser.

Maybe "suppression" has only harsher meanings in English, rather than in the Italian friend word. I will use "removal" instead.

Anyway, removal of data is what happened at some point. Consider the facts:

(a) JR finally admitted (1) that "The excess heat run was heated inside, mainly with glow discharge.";

(b) JR revealed (2) that "The analyzer was purchased for the plasma discharge experiments, which have rapidly changing input power."

So, given these (plausible) facts, what do you expect to find in the spreadsheets? Don't you expect to see the values measured by the analyzer in the "Input power" column of the ""excess heat run"? Instead you find the data from the analyzer in the "Input power" column of the "calibration run" and in the same column the "excess heat run" spreadsheet shows the V*I products!

It follows, that the analyzer data of the "excess heat run" have been removed at a given time. It could have happened very early, when the original "excess heat" spreadsheet was created, by avoiding dumping the analyzer data into the PC. Otherwise, it happened later by removing these data from a first version of the "excess heat run" spreadsheet. The original spreadsheets have been generated in Japan, and have been released from the USA. Somewhere, the data of the analyzer have been removed. In any case, the final result is that, for the glow discharge run we don't have the data measured by the instrument which was purchased for the plasma discharge experiments.

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That difference should have been noted explicitly, and should be explained, just as all instrument differences between control and active runs should be explained. On the face of it, it is strange.

Well, someone was aware of the problem. In fact, both spreadsheets report the note "V/DC*I/DC but probably measured directly with a wattmeter". Who added it into the spreadsheets and why?

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I doubt Jed is in any position to explain this himself: but he could note the issue (which he has been reluctant to do) and either get an explanation from Mizuno or note as an unresolved issue here that there that he cannot do that.

JR has presented this work at ICCF21 in June 2018 (3). Maybe, he also helped TM to write the JCMNS article, published on November 2017 (4). In any case, he claims to know every details of the May 2016 tests.

He could ask Mizuno, a good idea, but I have trouble in believing everything he says, I'm sorry. Consider, for example, the recent episode of the correlation between the blower power with the air speed measured by the anemometer (5). Now, he is repeating that "only the V*I data is in report" (6), but everyone can see that the "Input power" column in "calibration" spreadsheet doesn't report the V*I data.

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Why do these methodological issues matter? Because if unresolved they show bad practice that could easily result in significant mistakes leading to false positives. We cannot know, from these issues, that there will be any mistakes. It is a red flag, along with a number of other issues (for example the very different and unexplained initial rising edge gradient for output temperature in the control and active tests).

The issue of the "Input power" values on the two spreadsheets is a special one, because it can prove that someone is trying to take us by the nose!

(1) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

(2) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

(3) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTexcessheat.pdf

(4) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

(5) Mizuno reports increased excess heat

(6) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

Quote from RobertBryant

I guess one measures " watts " and the other measures " whats "

TIME seconds	ACTIVE WATTS	CONTROL WHATS
o	0.00	0.00
24.4	121.14	46.02
48.9	121.00	121.61
73.4	121.06	121.34
97.8	121.03	121.13

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I guess "Input power" is expressed in "true-watts" in the calibration spreadsheet and in "fake-watts" in the excess heat spreadsheet.

Quote from RobertBryant

Ascoli.. I am sure that Jed is busy with La Dolce Vita in Assisi ... or maybe he is getting a 4D headache,

He was asked for an answer more than one month ago (1). It's evident that he has no intention to answer this question.

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Here is how each spreadsheet arises... I am not sure what Mizuno is using for his data format

But there is conversion/ Jap-Eng translation involved and each spreadsheet requires a lot of work

from 2017...

Whatever the data format used by Mizuno, no conversion or Jap/Eng translation tool is able to substitute the original values in one column with the products of two other columns. This substitution can be only explained by a XXXXXXXXX of the original experimental data.

Edited for accusatory language: Shane

(1) Mizuno reports increased excess heat

Quote from JedRothwell

That is completely wrong. Where do you and Ascoli come up with this stuff?

As I already told him (1), THH and me don't agree on this point. THH insists that "input power is measured differently between the control and active run spreadsheets", but IMO they have been measured exactly in the same way and the difference between the spreadsheets can only be explained by a subsequent removal from the active run spreadsheet of the "Input power" values measured by the Yokogawa analyzer and its replacement with the V*I products.

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The spreadsheet is generated by the multichannel HP gadget, and it only records V*I on fixed channels. The analyzer has its own memory and it can be dumped into a computer, but it is not part of the automatic data collection system. Perhaps it could be interfaced, but it is not in these studies.

Not true. As shown in a previous jpeg (2), the two spreadsheets of the active and control runs both report the value of V/DC and I/DC. However, they differ in the quantity reported in the "Input power" column: the active run spreadsheet contains the results of the V/DC*I/DC products, while the control run spreadsheet contains another quantity, clearly different from the V*I product. This quantity can only come from the Yokogawa power input analyzer.

In fact, figure 13 in the JCMNS article (3) shows that the "Power analyzer" is connected to the "Data logger" and this latter to the "PC". The same is reported in the text: "The rectangles in the lower left of the figure represent the input power supply, the power input analyzer (Yokogawa, PZ 4000), the data logger (Agilent, 34970A), and the PC for data acquisition. […] Data from six reactor temperatures, electric power to the test reactor that is processed by the power-meter, electric currents and voltages for the power supply of the blower, and the temperatures of the inlet and the outlet air flows were collected by a data logger and recorded to a PC every 5 s."

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The analyzer was purchased for the plasma discharge experiments, which have rapidly changing input power.

So, this analyzer was suitable for capturing all the power absorbed to internally heat - "mainly with glow discharge" as you have recently specified (4) - the reactor during the active runs. Is this the reason why the data measured by this instrument have been removed from the 120W active run spreadsheet and replaced by the V*I product?

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The HP gadget measures electric power on the same channels (corresponding to spreadsheet columns) with the same wires during calibrations and active runs. The wires are unplugged from one machine and plugged into the other.

I believe you on this point, it's reasonable. But you have still to explain why the quantity reported in the column "Input power" of the two 120 W test spreadsheets are different from each other.

(1) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

(2) Mizuno reports increased excess heat

(3) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

(4) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

Quote from JedRothwell

Surely you realize I disagree. I know that you think you discovered errors, just as Morrison, THH and others think they did, but I disagree. There is no need for you to reiterate your claims in detail as if we were unaware of them. You need only say, "I disagree."

I know that you know. I haven't reiterated any detail, this thread is not the right place to reopen the debate on F&P. I just wanted to provide the links where interested readers can see by themselves that F&P (and you) were wrong.

Quote from JedRothwell

Skeptics have not discovered any errors in any major cold fusion study.

Not true! Sorry.

LENR-Forum readers know, or can easily learn, that the "1992 boil-off experiment" - that is the F&P's major, best documented and most famous CF study - contains many huge errors, which completely invalidate their conclusions, as has been widely explained and documented, in recent months, in the following threads:

- "FP's experiments discussion", starting from comment FP's experiments discussion

- "F&P's experiments – 30 years after CF announcement", F&P's experiments – 30 years after CF announcement

List of all the output power curves in the JCMNS Vol.25 (Nov.2017)

The 120 W tests, that have been extensively reviewed in recent weeks, were reported for the first time in an article published in November 2017, in Volume 25 of JCMNS (1). In addition to the tests at 80, 120, and 248 W of nominal input, whose output power curves were reported in Figure 27 and 28, the JCMNS article contains the output power curves of other 3 tests.

The following table lists all these curves and the respective tests in the same order as the figures:

The list above shows 2 groups of tests:

(A) – Includes 3 tests (from 1 to 3) performed at 1 nominal input power of 100 W;

(B) – Includes 6 tests (from 4 to 9) performed at 3 nominal input powers: 80, 120, and 248 W.

From the 120 W spreadsheets, we know that the group (B) tests were run in May 2016. It's not clear when the groups (A) tests were performed. In the JCMNS article they have been described as first, but Fig.21 reports the date of May 2017. In any case, the article describes only one type of reactor body, that is the 20 kg cruciform body, so we can assume that all the tests were carried out using 2 identical reactors – one control and one active reactor – placed side by side inside the air flow calorimeter.

The control reactor was used to run 4 calibration tests (N. 1, 4, 6, and 8). In these tests, the power output matched the nominal input power and all the corresponding curves show a time constant of several hundred seconds.

The remaining 5 tests (N. 2, 3, 5, 7, and 9) were performed with the so called "active" reactor, ie the reactor whose internal Ni mesh was deemed able to produce an excess heat from LENR. The reported values of the output powers measured during these last tests exhibit comparable levels of excess heat (from tens to hundreds watts) and power gains (from 30 to 100%). However the output power of the two tests of group (A) (N. 2 and 3) behave differently from the three tests of group (B) (N. 5, 7, and 9). The difference is represented by the time constants. The time constant of group (A) tests is the same of the calibration tests, that is a few hundreds of seconds, while the time constant of group (B) active tests is 10x longer.

This difference in the time constants of the so called "excess heat" tests of the groups (A) and (B) is very significant. As finally admitted by JR (2), the longer time constant of group (B) active tests reveals that the heat source was totally internal to the reactor body. It follows that the shorter time constant of group (A) active tests reveals that the heat source was totally external to the reactor body. But the Ni mesh is internal to the reactor, therefore it may not have been the source of the alleged excess heat claimed for the group (A) tests. This fact leaves a big measurements mistake as the only plausible explanation for the differences between the input and output powers in the so called "excess heat" tests reported at figures 21 and 24 of the referenced JCMNS article.

(1) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

(2) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

Quote from THHuxleynew

yes - I know that. It is just that the 2019 paper, as I quoted before, says something different.

Dear THH,

may I suggest you to limit the frequency of your replies to RB?

It is clear that his interventions aim to boycott the discussion and to make the findings on the main deficiencies of Mizuno's tests less evident, by filling the pages of this thread with posts on specious arguments of detail.

People who read this test and have a real interest in finding out about the reality of Mizuno's results can easily eliminate the RB disturbing noise by ignoring his posts. If you answer them, they must skip twice as many posts, having to select among your posts those that deal with really important topics.

I hope you agree with me that at the moment the priority is to get from JedRothwell an answer to the question of the difference between the "Input power" columns of the two 120 W spreadsheets (1).

(1) Error bounds for Mizuno R19 results

Quote from RobertBryant

NOISE NOISE NOISE

The noise THHNew propose in his vagueness is indeed noise.

Electrical noise?? Audible noise?

Ascoli turbulence? is this a scientific term.???

is there a paper on Ascoli turbulence?

Is it related to Ascoli foam?

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Noise is a disturbance signal which overlaps a basic signal, reducing its intelligibility.

Noise is exactly what you are doing in this thread trying to interfere and reduce the intelligibility of what is emerging from a in-depth survey of the information available on Mizuno's tests.

Of course, your noise is easily identifiable and can/should be ignored by those sincerely interested in the subject. But it is also a precious indication of the speciousness of the reasons which are brought in favor of the Mizuno's results. Thanks for your contribution in revealing one of the peculiar ways-of-doing of the field.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Redux

Ascoli's useful observations on the 2016 data (that is the 100% excess power 2017 published results that preceded the R19 and R20 results):

• The input power is measured differently between the control and active run spreadsheets. In the control case with a mains power analyser. In the active case with figures computed from V*I. This is not evidenced on the spreadsheets where the power column is used and filled with V*I or other measurements which by inspection would come from a power analyser.
• The resistance of the heating element for control and active runs differs by a factor of 2.
• The dynamics of the control data are 10X faster than the active data
• The mass of the reactor used for these results is inconsistenctly stated as 50kg old-style (from the 2019 paper) and 20kg - seemingly new-style though not called that (from the 2017 paper!). It would be good to have some confirmation of which reactor was used, and also which methodology. the old-style reactors were measured individually by the calorimeter. the new-style reactors used two reactors, control and active, together at the same time.

On investigating the dynamics issue we find that the active data has an internal heater, The control data has an external heater. This explains the dynamics if we assume that the external heater does not make good thermal contact with the reactor and therefore heats up the reactor casing much less than the internal heater. It also explains the different resistance. There remains no explanation for the different input power measurement between active and control runs, which is unfortunate, although not in itself a problem. The exact methodology of these results (old-style or new-style) has still not been clarified; the two papers contradict each other.

There is nothing here that necessarily invalidates these results. However, the poor methodology (very different systems used for active and control runs) and poor documentation - e.g. the difference in power measurement is not made explicit on the spreadsheets - is unfortunate and makes it more difficult to accept extraordinary results as real rather than some mistake caused by poor methodology and record-keeping.

As one example. It would normally be obvious from reactor temperature whether control power out was more or less than active power out (at least at the 2x level reported). In this case that cannot help, because the active reactor, with external heater, would get much hotter even with the same power as the control and no mesh inside. It should be possible to do this with the R19 results given detailed spreadsheet data.

On the positive side: we can see that looking at the dynamics of these runs, together with the reactor case temperature, allows an independent measurement of the total (output) power, as an excellent cross-check on the output calorimetry that should be accurate +/- 20%.

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Thank you for the clear and concise summary of the issues that have emerged so far from a more in-depth survey on the 120W spreadsheets and on the other documents reporting the May 2016 tests. It shows that these tests are so far the most significant of the whole Mizuno's activity, even more important than the recent R19 and R20 tests, because the numerical data allow us to estimate the first and most important requisite for scientific research, that is the reliability of the information which are provided to support the claimed results. What emerged by looking at these data is that this reliability is very low, especially when compared to the extraordinary nature of the claimed results.

In your summary, you said "The input power is measured differently between the control and active run spreadsheets". Well, as I already told you (1), this is not exactly my position. We can only say that the input power is "reported" differently, but the circumstances and the information from JR strongly indicates that the power was measured in the same way and by the same instruments in all cases. So IMO the real big problem is that the data coming from the Yokogawa power analyzer have been removed from the spreadsheet of the 120 W active run, and this modification can't be done unintentionally.

You, me, and others have asked many times to provide an explanation for the differences between the data in the "Input power" columns of the two available spreadsheets. So far, JedRothwell has always ignored this crucial question and I hope he understand that the lack of any alternative plausible explanation raises doubts that go beyond the mere unreliability of the released information.

(1) Error bounds for Mizuno R19 results

Quote from JedRothwell

The calibration was performed with the heater wrapped around the outside of the reactor, and the reactor did not get very hot inside. The excess heat run was heated inside, mainly with glow discharge.

Good progress. You have finally confirmed what I've been saying for many weeks and that you have always denied so far (1).

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That is incorrect, as I said. It is not plausible that several experienced scientists using multiple meters (including ones brought by me and other outsiders) would fail to notice this problem for many years.

What is incorrect? Are you meaning that I was incorrect in attributing the cause to a "mistake"? OK, now you told us it was instead a deliberate choice of the experimenter. But how could I knew it? This fact was not reported in the 2017 paper, which describes the May 2016 tests (2). The author of this paper didn't tell readers that the active run was done by heating the reactor from inside and by means of glow discharge. He mentioned the glow discharge procedure only in section 2.5 "Preparation of reacting material". However, the author pointed out at page 18 that active "tests behave differently from the calibration test", but he didn't explained the true reason, ie that the heating process was completely different. By doing so, he induced the readers understand that the "different behavior" depended only by the activated status of the Ni mesh. Let me say, this is not a correct way of reporting extraordinary results.

(1) Mizuno reports increased excess heat

(2) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

Quote from THHuxleynew

Ascoli,
I'm not sure we will get a definitive answer on this, but in the interest of accuracy:

[...]

We can now quite easily make progress because we can estimate the thermal capacity and therefore the time constant for given cooling.

Well, it seems we made progress in the meanwhile. JR has finally admitted (1) that, in the active run of May 2016, the heating was internal and not external, as in the control run. Therefore, he confirmed that the cause of the greater time constant – that he called latency – was the deliberate choice of heating the active reactor from the inside, "mainly with glow discharge".

The use of glow discharge suggests another possible trivial explanation - in addition to a possible mistaken value of shunt resistance entered into the data system - for the apparent excess heat: the spiky current on the DC side of the power supply could have been heavily under-measured. This would fit with your concerns about the waveform, wouldn't it?

However, even in this case, the Yokogawa power analyzer, positioned at the AC inlet side of the PSU, would have correctly measured all the absorbed power, but its values have been removed from the spreadsheet of the 120 W active run. This is the main red flag, which JedRothwell has not yet explained.

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Paper B says these (old method) came from (old method) calorimetry using 50kg reactor. Paper A 2017 says these same results came from calorimetry which is described as identical to the new method calorimetry in paper B: dual 20kg reactors side by side in the calorimeter.

A paper presented at ICC18 in 2013 (2) describes more extensively both the 20 kg and the 50 kg cruciform reactors. It seems that the reactor shown in Figure 1 of the paper A 2017 is different from the 50 kg cruciform reactor shown in Figure 7 of (2). For example, the reactor in paper A 2017 has 16 holes in the upper main flange, whereas the holes in the larger flange of the 50 kg reactor are more than 20.

In any case, all photos of the experimental setups with cruciform reactors show two identical devices. Therefore, the differences between the active and control curves can't be explained by a difference in the mass of the two tested reactors.

(1) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

(2) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTmethodofco.pdf

Quote from RobertBryant

THH was quoted as saying "The active run time constant is equal on rising and falling edge,"

A closer look a the 120W active data reveals

no equal "time constant "

In addition the falling curve has a long slow tail.

The scatter of points and the shapes do

not conform simply with time constant exponential curves

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I said the THH considerations were "appropriate", I didn't say they were "exact". THH himself warned that he provided a roughly estimation of the time constants and, given the complexity of the reactor body, there is no wonder that these constants varies during the heating and cooling phases.

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In particular there is a huge scatter at the end of the rising curve

which tranforms to a much smaller scatter on the falling curve.

It's normal. Heating is different from cooling. During the heating phase the temperature in the system are less uniform, because the heating elements are hot. After the power off, temperatures tend to become more uniform, causing a lower scattering in the temperature of the turbulent air flow.

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The scatter and shape can be result from a

sequence of net endothermic followed by net

exothermic processes which start to terminate at time 20,500 occurring in multiple small NAE (nuclear active environments) on the Ni/Pd

mesh in the 2017 120W excess heat production.

Exhilarant!

Back on Earth. What we can say with absolute certainty is that the time constants of the heating and cooling phases of the active reactor are one order of magnitudes greater than those of the control reactor. This is evident to everybody and should have been enough for a long running researcher in the field to deduce that something went badly wrong in his experiment. It should have been sufficient also for a long running reporter in the field, like JedRothwell, which also wrote and signed the most recent papers about these tests. On the contrary, despite all these warning evidences and the several huge inconsistencies contained in the spreadsheets (*), these results have been proposed as extraordinary outcomes in a JCMNS article in 2017 (1), illustrated at the last ICCF21 in 2018 (2) and eventually confirmed as an effective way to produce several hundred watts of excess heat in a more recent JCMNS article (3).

IMO, the 2016 Mizuno's experiment is a paradigmatic representation of 30 years of CF/LENR history and worth all the attention at the next celebration of ICCF22 in Assisi.

(*) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

(1) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

(2) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTexcessheat.pdf

(3) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTexcessheata.pdf

Mizuno’s May 2016 tests – Heat fluxes during the active and control runs at 120 W

Quote from THHuxleynew

Consider those two curves. [...] the time constant of the active run is 7000s, the time constant of the calibration run is 500s (roughly - we could get a more accurate value from spreadsheets).

[...]

The active run time constant is equal on rising and falling edge, so this does not appear to be anything other than a thermal time constant effect.

Given that as the paper says the actual reactor masses are identical, how can we get these very different thermal time constant?

These are appropriate considerations and your question highlights the crucial point: supposing that all the rest (reactors and calorimeter) of the two experimental setups (ie those of the active and control runs) is identical, the only parameter that could affect the time constant is the heated mass.

At a first glance, we observe that the reactor are identical, so we could conclude that the involved mass should be the same, but looking better at the paths of the heat fluxes we can see that when the powered heater is the external one, only a tiny part of the reactor body is crossed by the heat. On the contrary, if the heat source is placed inside the reactor, all the internal walls are exposed to the radiation heat coming from the inner source and the heat flux should necessarily cross the whole thickness of the body. Therefore, the different time constants can be easily explained by the very different extension of the metal mass involved in the heating process, as illustrated in the following jpeg.

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This is a red flag. The very different time constants imply differences in the setup (large ones) just as the different heater resistances imply a difference in heater design, contrary to what is stated in the paper.

Actually, all the photos show that the two reactor are identical, so the most plausible explanation for the different time constants is that, for the active reactor, an inner heater (maybe the ceramic heater shown in the schematic) was mistakenly connected to the PSU, instead of the regular external heater.

Quote from JedRothwell

That is not plausible, because multiple meters are used to ensure there can be no mistake of that nature.

Data from spreadsheets are much more meaningful than unsupported sentences. The red and blue curves in the previous jpeg (*) come directly from the data in the spreadsheets that you have uploaded in the internet.

What is your explanation for the their strange behavior?

(*) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

Mizuno’s tests – Expected DTair trend for the 120 W run of the May 2016 experiment

The following jpeg illustrates the main reason which suggests that the an inner heater was powered during the active runs of the May 2016 experimental campaign, instead of the regular ouside heater.

Figure 5 of the 2019 JCNMS article (1) shows that the active and the control reactors are apparently identical. The same identity is shown in Figure 11 of the 2017 JCMNS article (2), in which, at point 2.6, we can also read: "The same type of reactor is used in the calibration, and is installed as a control for calibration of the heat balance in the enclosure described below. The design, size, weight, and shape of this calibration reactor are exactly the same as the reactor used for testing."

Therefore, everyone expects that, within the limit of the error guaranteed by the manufacturers, all the components of the two reactors (shown on the schematic of Figure 1 (1)) are also identical, including the external reactor heater, briefly described in (2) by providing these univocal parameters: "A 2-m-long heater of stainless sheath was wrapped around the reactor body. Its purpose was to heat the nickel mesh in the reactor. The heater capacity is 100 V, 600 W, with a maximum temperature of 500°C."

However, the power output curves of the active runs at 80, 120, and 248 W clearly show a strange trend compared to the correspondent control curves. This difference was also noted by the experimenters, as they reported in (2):

"The calibration test by the control reactor were performed at three input power levels. Figure 27 shows the output power of the control reactor for the input of 80 W, 120 W and 248 W. The output power is confirmed to be the same as input power.

The results of same inputs to the test reactor are shown in Fig. 28. These tests behave differently from the calibration test. …"

The weirdness of this different behavior is much more evident when drawing the active and control curves in the same graph. The above jpeg shows the two curves for the 120 W active and control tests, whose spreadsheets was release in summer 2017 (3-4). The represented quantity is the DTair, which is assumed to be proportional to the power output. Moreover, the two curves have been slightly shifted over time in order to make them both start at the power onset.

We can see that, during the heating phase, the active curve (in red) increases much more slowly than the control curve (in blue) and the two curves intersect only after a couple of hours. This is very strange, because - if the only difference between the two experimental setup was the activation of the internal mesh, which was claimed to generate excess heat in addition to the heat produced by the external heater - it was expected that the active curve would have remained above the control curve for the entire heating phase, as exemplified by the green dotted line reported on the graph.

In conclusion, the only plausible explanation for this strange behavior is that, in the case of the active reactor, an internal source of electric heating was mistakenly connected to the power unit, rather than the normal external heater.

(1) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTexcessheata.pdf

(2) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

(3) Mizuno : Publication of kW/COP2 excess heat results

(4) Mizuno : Publication of kW/COP2 excess heat results

Quote from JedRothwell

You have an astounding ability to misunderstand things! OBVIOUSLY I did not mean that all resistors look the same. I meant the heat looks the same to the calorimeter. That's what I said. The output measured by the calorimeter is the same at a given power level, no matter where the heater is located or what sort of heater it is.

Did you really think I meant what you said? Or were you just trolling, trying to introduce doubts, and trying to make Mizuno look like an idiot? I suspect the latter. But you say many off-the-wall things that no normal person would believe. Perhaps you are serious.

In the quoted post, you wrote " The physical calibration and active reactors themselves have been the same in most cases, but in other cases they are different." I don't think I was the only one to understand that the May 2016 experiment – whose photos show two identical reactors placed inside the calorimeter – belonged to the "most cases". In fact, it seems to me an obvious requirements - for an experiment aimed to demonstrate an extraordinary effect on the basis of the different behaviors between an active and a control reactor - that the tested devices are exactly identical.

Are you now claiming that the heater resistors of the two reactors used in that important and unique experiment were so different that the resistance of the active heater was half the resistance of the heater used in the control reactor? Has Mizuno measured the resistance of the two heaters during the 6 runs performed in May 2016? Why didn't he report these important differences in the various documents (1-2-3) describing that experiment?

(1) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

(2) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTexcessheat.pdf

(3) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTexcessheata.pdf

Quote from Daniel_G

@Ascoli, nichrome wire resistance varies greatly with temperature.

Not so much to account for the factor 2 shown by the spreadsheets. The variability is less than 10% at 1200 °C: http://www.brysonics.com/wp-co…ty-Correction-vs-Temp.jpg

Anyway, the values of V/DC and I/DC are nearly constant throughout the whole heating period of both the active and control runs, therefore the resistances of the two heaters powered in the active and control reactors were also constant and different each other.

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There is not any logical reason to expect control and active heaters to have the same resistance nor is it necessary for calibration to use the exact same heater.

We are not talking about a generic methodology. We are talking about the specific tests performed by Mizuno and this is what JR wrote three days ago:

So, if the above information have some bases, the values of the heater resistances of the active and control reactors tested in May 2016 should have been identical. But, instead, they are very different: the resistance of the active reactor heater (20 ohm) was about the half of the control reactor heater (37 ohm).

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Resistance heaters convert electrical power to heat and the electrical power is measured easily.

It's true that measuring the electrical power is very easy, but it is also very easy to make big mistakes like those evidenced in the spreadsheets of the May 2016 tests. The inconsistencies contained in the spreadsheets suggest that the experimental data were not checked at all. But this hypothesis is the most benevolent, because it doesn't still explain why the values directly measured by the Yokogawa wattmeter have been removed from the active spreadsheet.

Hi, Cwatters,

Quote from CWatters

The voltage changes from 67v to 49v yet the current increases from 1.8A to 2.4A.

That can only happen if the impedance of the load (the heating coil) changes. So something is up whatever the cause.

No, as you can see by looking at the 2 spreadsheets, neither the voltages, nor the amperages changes significantly during the 2 active and control runs. They are different for the 2 runs, but are almost constant throughout each one of the two runs. It also means the resistences of the two heater remained equally constant during each run.

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Let's calculate the coil resistance assuming they were switched...

67v/2.4A = 27.9 Ohms

49v/1.8A = 27.2 Ohms

Close enough to suggest this might be the cause?

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Be careful! You have inverted the terms. For the active reactor we have a resistance of 49/2.4=20.4 ohm. For the control reactor we have 67/1.8=37.2 ohm. The great difference between these values confirms that there happened a serious mistake in the wiring of the experimental set-up.

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I haven't looked to see if we know the coil resistance.

It would be very useful to know the resistances of the external and internal heaters. If you find something, please, let us know.