On Jan 31, 2006, at 6:35 AM, Jones Beene wrote:
The previous run provides the "active" setting but it cannot be presummed that there was significant residual hydrogen in the hood - such as if the exhaust fan totally failed - and even if there was this is totaly unnecssary and moreover inconsistent with this kind of sudden power increase in the cell.
There is no indication of a "previuos run" other than the fact the electrolysis was shut down briefly.
If we are to accept everything Mizuno says, the explosion actually could NOT have been casued by hydrogen at all !
He is assuming it could not have been caused by hydrogen in the cell, and that is most propbably correct.
That's right, a hydrogen explosion it totally inconsistent with this situation - as it would have casued an explosion long before the 10 seconds, and the water in the cell COULD NOT have attained that temperature.
It merely took 10 seconds to reach the conditions for the incubator hydrogen to be ignited by the exposed cell.
At only 3-4 seconds the surface temperature of the cathode, down to a micron or so was already near its melting point. If hydrogen had been there, it would have exploded then - ending the episode and not allowing further heat-up of the water.
It is not the hydrogen in the cell that made the big bang, it is the hydrogen in the incubator.
The Stephan-Boltzmann law defines the maximum power per unit area that a perfect emitter of radiation (blackbody) can sustain.
Nonsense. The Stephan-Boltzmann law refers only to photon radiation. It has little to do with heat transfer by direct contact.
[snip irrelevant calculation]
A hydrogen explosion, or residual hydrogen left over from the previous run would have ended this episode long before the 10 seconds - so that possibility is eliminated.
Only when the cell reaches a state where the external hydrogen can be ignited does the bang occur, and clearly that took about 10 seconds.
Given this, personally I am suspicious of Mizuno figures or at least wishing that an isoptic analysis of the metal surface had been made, since that is the only way to prove a real nuclear reaction. BTW - the most active part of the surface area could not have been tested as it must have alreadu boiled off.
The excess heat part of the event is indeed anomalous, and at least needs some looking at. My point is simply that there is not a *necessary* connection between the blast and the excess heat event other than the ignition.
A high volume low energy density blast in the incubator makes sense of the blast effects. The black top is conical, tapered on the sides. An overpressure would have driven that downward and forced the top glass sides outward. The shards remaining in place at the bottom indicate an overpressure explosion. Had the force been internal to the cell the bottom pieces and the material below would have been pulled apart. The fact the Tygon tubing around the cathode remains intact, not even rearranged, is another indication the main explosion was not internal to the cell, and certainly not internal to the Tygon coil. The fact the glass shards made it out of the incubator while leaving the door intact indicates the door was opened prior to their arrival, which is fully consistent with an overpressure explanation, but not with the source of the blast energy being within the cell.
Horace Heffner
