Posts by WMartin

Something not mentioned earlier about those four pipes. They are uninsulated and assuming that the conduit on top of the box is 2 inch conduit, the pipes would be four inch pipes. Since they are uninsulated, they would not belong to a high temperature system.

Edit:

They are either supply or return. If they are supply the steam would have to be sent to the ceiling at the E-cat side requiring a pressurized system. Same thing for return, you have to get the product to the top of the ceiling for the system to work.

300 feet of pipe is actually not that much piping. The exchanger is reported to be on the second floor. Just the vertical change is 20 feet. Just for product, steam, and condensate you need 80 feet minimum. Add in horizontal changes, control loops, and bypasses can easily reach three hundred linear feet of piping. This tells me that a very simple system is being described.

Quote from Rionrlty

They would not be investigating the case, but only the science of LENR.

Even that would be enough for a mistrial. Judges and losing attorneys take that very seriously.

ele wrote:

WMartin wrote:

I am not an attorney.

WMartin wrote: However, there is no chance for the forums to influence the trial for the following reasons:

WMartin wrote: IH attorneys will strike anyone who expresses an interest in LENR technology

I would strike also some "Taliban" of Science who is to much skeptic.......

If you are not an attorney how can we sure that what you write is true ?

Anyway is notorious that IH has hired a PR company and maybe that they want to generate a shared public opinion,

*end block quote*

I would strike also some "Taliban" of Science who is to much skeptic.......

I would also strike any self-proclaimed skeptic. A self-proclaimed skeptic is proud of the fact that they are resistant to believing what people tell them. A lawyer can not take a risk that they would not believe what they are told in trial.

If you are not an attorney how can we sure that what you write is true ?

The same way you would know what anyone else posts. Either do your own research or evaluate whether or not what they say makes sense. If I was here to lie I would not admit my own limitations but I am not infallible. If it will make you feel better I'll give my full relevant background. I have a B.S. in Law Enforcement. I flunked the eye exam for major police departments so I became a pipefitter for the money. After 20 years, I was injured in an industrial accident so I changed careers again and became a Middle School History teacher after getting a B.A. in History/Humanities. Because of the injury, I participated in a civil case that went to trial. During the trial I had extensive discussions with my attorneys about selecting a jury. Jury selection is not a matter of law but psychology. Each side wants a jury that will follow the rules but will be easily swayed toward their own side. I am following this issue not because of the LENR (although I have hopes that it will end up being commercially viable) but because this case is fascinating to me from a psychological basis. The reactions on the forums in this trial have been very educational and I hope to be able to use what I am learning to help the children I teach succeed in life. So keep trolling and have fun.

BTW, I think those that are hoping for major technology revelations in the trial will be disappointed. The judge in my trial did everything he could do to make the case as short as possible and encouraged the attorneys to keep everything relevant to the legal matters at hand. IMHO, the case will be decided as much as possible on the contract at hand. Any technical issues will be confined to supporting whether of not the contract was valid or fulfilled.

Peter Gluck

Quote from Peter Gluck

I don't know how is this in the US but here everybdy -age 12 to 91 has a smart-phone or a tablet and uses it.

However if this forum has no influence on the Jury

then why are we arguing? I know you will say ever pipe half full, steam pipe diam 40mm because Murray is your Source and I will not accept these things.

The discussions are pretty useless. Clashes of certainties. Better shut down this thread and let's go to NISSAN now.

peter

I am not an attorney.

Having served in a jury a couple times and having been involved as a plaintiff in a civil trial once, Almost all jurors are very conscientious once they are selected. One of the key questions asked of the prospective jurors is "can you follow the law if you are selected for the jury?" Failure to answer yes results in your dismissal from the jury pool automatically. This is one of the ways you can get out of jury duty in the US. The judge will direct the jurors to not look at any outside information in the case until it is over. For most people, these two together are enough to keep people from looking up information. Violating this directive at a minimum will get the juror dismissed from service. It also creates grounds for appeal of the verdict. Sharing the information with the other jurors creates grounds for a mistrial which would result in the trial starting all over again. If the juror upsets the judge enough, the judge can find the juror in contempt of court and can fine him or her or even put them in jail for up to 6 months. Only people who feel very strongly about a case will risk these sanctions and unless the lawyers are incompetent, those will be excluded from the jury.

What this forum does is allow those who care about the subject a way to discuss their opinions and concerns. I find this more valuable than influencing the trial.

ele wrote

Quote

5) Darden is paying (with real money) actors on the web (Weaver/Sigmoidal, J.Rothwell and others) in order to influence the trial.

I've seen this repeated by more than one person on the forums. However, there is no chance for the forums to influence the trial for the following reasons:

1) There are only a few hundred at most that read the forums and jury selection is a random selection from the area of the court. (In Texas, the jury pool is chosen from a computer selected random list of driver's license holders.)

2) Out of those 60 or so candidates, the attorneys will then strike jurors they do not like.

3) Attorney for either side can strike for cause any juror that expresses a firm opinion about the case. They get unlimited strikes for this reason.

4) Out of the jury pool that is left. Each attorney can strike half of the left over excess jurors for any reason whatsoever.

5) IH attorneys will strike anyone who expresses an interest in LENR technology because they can not risk getting a person who wants to believe in the technology and they will argue this case as a simple contract dispute.

If IH or Rossi are paying people to post on the forums then they are wasting their money. It is much more likely that each side merely has people that fervently believe in their position.

Remember, legally Darden, IH,IHP, and Cherokee are all independent separate entities even if they are all run by Darden. Rossi is fishing for contradictory answers he can use in the trial. This is all a standard part of this type of trial. Fishing is one of lawyers favorite pastimes. Especially if they think it will add to total payout in a judgement or settlement. I.e. Legal fees.

Edited for spelling and clarity.

bang99 ,

It's better than 2k posts. This thread is part 2.

Given the amount of money, I can almost guarantee an appeal. Based on my own case, legal fees for an appeal would run 600k to 1 million dollars. Chicken feed when dealing with a possible 100 million and up judgement.

Rigel ,

The trial is still in the discovery phase. There will be no open proceedings until the trial enters jury stage. That means that the only information we get right now is the documents submitted to the court or court rulings.

Zephir_AWT,

I see your point about it being low temperature steam. I do have a different perspective though. In a 350-400 day test, you want things to be as reliable as possible. Also, safety is part of the consideration too. In an emergency, you want to be sure you can shut off supply completely.

Zephir_AWT ,

You can use bronze ball valves for steam but they are not reliable. I worked at a plant that used ball valves in steam lines for over a year. We (maintenance) agued with the upper management about using those valves constantly. They will work for a while. The problem is that the valves are not reliable in steam usage. After a couple of months the valves would not shut off because the steam damaged the Teflon seals. We would have to shut entire units down to make repairs to one line. Ball valves that are reliable in steam service are very expensive because they use a special rubber like polymer to survive the heat. A standard gate valve is much cheaper and longer lasting. Also no plant I worked for used threaded fittings for steam service because steam leaks quickly cut any material while they are leaking. I remember one time we had a steam flange leaking. It took 48 hours to safely isolate the leak so that it could be worked on. We ended up having to replace the entire flange because the sealing surface was too cut up to seal.

I freely admit that you can use threaded ball valves in steam service. You will, however, have no end of headaches and a massive amount of downtime unless you have a lot of redundant piping, On the other hand, that could be one of the reasons that Rossi had to almost live in the E-cat during the test. Like I said before, My experience is that the valve in the picture of the blue shipping container is more for liquid water service. A stainless steel or carbon steel welded ball valve would change my opinion. I looked up a couple of industrial supply places and their bronze steam valves were only rated for fractional steam service.

On a related note, when you are just doing experimentation, the type of valve would not make any difference because your taking apart and putting things together constantly. Does this show that Rossi is not getting any help from practical mechanical engineers in trying to transition from laboratory to small and mid scale testing?

Paradigmnoia ,

That valve appeared to me to be a standard 2 inch bronze body two part threaded ball valve. I am not going to definitively say that for sure because we are dealing with pictures not showing the entire valve. I looks too big for an 1 1/2 inch valve. I believe that the quote of 40mm is a mistake and I believe that the 40 was probably schedule 40 piping. On the other hand, 3 inch valves are much bigger than the valve shown. From memory ( I left construction about 8 years ago because of an injury), the flat sides of a shipping container is between 4 and 5 inches wide. That is a good secondary check on the size of piping,

StephenC,

Glad to be here. Yes, conex is another word for shipping container and yes, those pipes.

I have been lurking on this forum for a couple of months and there is something that has bothered me about the pictures of the conex holding the e-cat. First though, some information about my background. I am not a scientist or an engineer. I do have 16 years as an industrial pipefitter including new construction, revamps, and maintenance. The pictures show a bronze body ball valve hook up out of the conex. There has been a lot of discussion about the size of the valve. Theoretically, the valve could have been up to 4 inch diameter but the apparent size of the valve from the picture looks to me to be a 2 or 2 1/2 inch valve. My problem though is the fact that it is a two part bronze body valve. Even though you can get them rated for up to 450 degrees F, bronze body is not standard for steam. You would typically use iron for steam. Because the piping looked to be galvanized piping, the only connection that would work is a threaded connection. Bronze expands and shrinks with heat at a greater rate than iron. With a threaded connection, leaks will occur at a greater rate than using welded construction. Because steam quickly cuts even hardened metal, you only have at most two days before you have to replace the valve to stop the leak. The internal workings of the valve also has a problem. The internal seals in the valve are teflon. The warmer the system, the softer the Teflon gets. One of the plants I worked in used three part ball valves for their steam heating system. The valves would last 1-2 months before the valves stopped working and the inner workings would have to be replaced. The key issue is that ball valves are not reliable in steam service. In order to replace the valves you have to shut down the entire system because the valves will not longer shut off. Is it reasonable that you design a system this way? Steam systems should have welded or flanged connections and gate valves on either side of the ball valves. For the above reasons, I believe that the system shown in the picture is designed for water operation. This does not preclude the e-cat providing needed heat, but it does limit its use in industrial or testing settings.