I think you are being unduly unkind in observations of Alan Goldwater's experiment.
Alan had previously done a dummy run with a thermocouple inserted into the center of the core and had a calibration curve showing the internal temperature of the reactor vs. the temperature on the outside of the reactor tube and the temperature on the outside of the heater assembly surface. Alan's arrangement is less insulated than Parkhomov's and there was a larger gradient from the core of the reactor to the outside of the reactor tube. Parkhomov did not have this calibration, so his core temperature during his experiment is unknown; though his core temperature was likely much closer to his reactor tube exterior measure of 1200C. Alan chose to remove his internal thermocouple for the actual run for fear of contamination. Alan chose a temperature to regulate using the reactor tube outside measure that would result in a core temperature of 1200C. Had Alan taken the reactor tube surface temperature to 1200C, he probably would have melted the Ni, if he could have gotten to that temperature without burnout of his heater coil. At most, the criticism should be that Alan could have insulated his reactor to a greater extent; perhaps with a reflector as did Parkhomov. We now have samples of the Ni powder that was used in Parkhomov's experiment, but do not yet have an analysis of it. So matching the Ni fuel Alan used "to spec" was not possible because we have no real specification. Further, we don't know what is important. Is it the surface morphology of the powder particles that are important (but unknown)? Is it the purity? LENR history shows that the highest purity is usually NOT what produces positive LENR results. We suspect Parkhomov's LENR powder to have been produced with a carbonyl process, and are sending a sample for analysis now. We do know that the Lugano HotCat used a carbonyl Ni powder. Parkhomov did not buy a specific powder - he bought what he could get. Alan used a similar carbonyl Ni powder. It was a good choice based on available information. Parkhomov is also using "alumina" tubes of unknown purity - they were what he could get. Based on comments MFMP received from Parkhomov, we believe he may have been using a mullite tube (~70% alumina). This is a core difference with what Alan and MFMP used - high purity (99.7%) alumina. The high purity alumina will be stronger, conduct less hydrogen, and will be more immune to chemical erosion (it is the portion which is not alumina that is subject to chemical erosion). Alan's seals were good - an improvement over Parkhomov's latest epoxy seals. This is borne out by the pressure profile Alan recorded - pressures about an order of magnitude higher than those of Parkhomov. So were Parkhomov's LEAKS important in his LENR? TBD. I think a far bigger unknown, as reported by Jones Beene, is the unknown isotopic composition of the Li in the LiAlH4 that Alan used. We should see isotopic analysis of Parkhomov's fuel reported at ICCF19, and then we will have an idea of what he used. However, the LiAlH4 that Alan used is a complete unknown and could easily have been 6Li robbed. We are currently investigating where MFMP could have ICP-MS done on its samples (any suggestions?). These comments are all without analysis of the experimental data from yesterday, just observation of the experiment. We will have to do the data reduction now against the dummy calibration run to understand what actually happened. We know the properties of the Ni used, but we don't know about the LiAlH4. We know the properties of Alan's alumina tubes and seals, but we don't know the properties of Parkhomov's tubes or seals. We don't know that the COP never exceeded 1.0, we just suspect it from casual observation of the raw data. My opinion is that this was the best documented, reported, and instrumented Parkhomov replication experiment to date. There are sure to be better experiments to come, but lets give Alan his due for putting together a good experiment. Bob Higgins On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 8:17 AM, Craig Haynie <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > MFMP didn't show COP>1, with the dog bone test, last night > > > It was a bit more disappointing than that. They didn't seem to have a > clear understanding of the protocol. They leveled the temperature at 855 > C, initially; then decided it should be leveled at 875 C. Then they > decided to raise it more, to an unspecified number. Meanwhile, the > peanut gallery was saying that the reaction didn't even start until the > outside core temperature was near 1200 C, and that the only constraint > was that nickel melted around 1455 C. > > They were also using a nickel powder for fuel which was not to spec, but > this was understood before the run. > > Learning how to replicate a known phenomenon is a learning process all > by itself. I can only imagine that several more tests will need to be > done, and that Parkhomov will need to be consulted, before this team has > a chance of success. > > Craig
