Here is part of a letter I got some time ago from Melvin Miles, about
the NHE data. You can learn more about this in the Google search box
at LENR-CANR.org by entering the search terms "Miles NHE."
- Jed
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jed,
The key paper on the F/P calorimetry by NHE was published in the
ICCF-5 Proceedings (Monaco 1995, pp. 105-115). In his letters to me
and in his publications following 1995, Martin Fleischmann pointed
out the numerous errors in this NHE paper. To put it mildly, Martin
was somewhat upset about this NHE paper. The authors of this 1995
paper were Toshiya Saito, Masao Sumi, Naoto Asami, and Hideo
Ikegami. Based on my five months at NHE in 1997-1998, I believe this
paper was mostly the work of Toshiya Saito who was working downstairs
with fuel cells when I was at NHE. I never actually got to meet
him. Masao Sumi helped me in setting up this F/P calorimetry at NHE,
and if there were questions or problems, then Sumi would take them
downstairs to Toshiya Saito for answers. It would be interesting if
someone could visit Mr. Saito and discuss with him the F/P
calorimetry and the issues raised by Martin Fleischmann. These main
issues are as follows:
1. The radiative heat transfer coefficient was determined solely by
the first heating pulse that occurred on the third day.
2. The presence of any excess heat on the third day will result in
heat transfer coefficients that are too small. This was the case in
my Pd-B study and my three codeposition experiments.
3. Heat transfer coefficients by NHE methods for my codeposition
experiments were significantly smaller than theoretical values based
on the Stefan-Boltzmann fundamental constant for black body
radiative. This is simply not possible.With a near perfect vacuum in
the Dewar and good insulation at the cell top in order to zero out
heat losses due to conduction, then the radiative heat transfer
coefficient may approach the theoretical value. Usually it will be a
few percent higher due to heat losses via conduction.
For Dewar cells that are several years old ,such as the cells I used
at NHE, the vacuum will soften due to atmospheric helium diffusion
through the glass and into the cells. This will cause the cell
constant to increase somewhat with time.
4. The heat capacity of the system (CpM) used by NHE was much too
large (490 versus 450 J/K). This will cause positive errors when the
cell temperature is increasing and negative errors when the cell
temperature is decreasing. Details for this as well as other issues
are found in the 2001 NRL Report, pp. 10-13.
5. The heating pulse used at NHE was too short for these cells (6
versus 12 hours); therefore, the cell temperature does not have
sufficient time to relax to equilibrium during the heating
pulse. See p. 10 and Fig. A.7 of the 2001 NRL Report.
6. Forward integration was used by NHE rather than the more accurate
backward integration used by Martin Fleischmann.
The use of NHE of a radiative heat transfer coefficient that was too
small produces, in effect, a shift of the zero line for excess
enthalpy. For example, compare Figs. A.18 and A.19 on pp. 78-79 of
the 2001 NRL Report. Excess power or excess heat, therefore, becomes
confused with the calorimetric error. The best solution is to first
run blank or control systems such as Pt/D2O to determine the
calorimetric accuracy. I was never shown any results for a control
system using F/P calorimetry while I was at NHE. I was shown only
Pd/D2O results using the F/P calorimetry where NHE people claimed
large errors. The ICCF-5 paper by Saito et al. mentions a Pt/D2O
control, but no data from this study is presented. It would be
interesting to see the results for this control study if they are
still available. . . .
For exactly the same cell that should have the same radiative heat
transfer coefficient, the various values reported can be
examined. I will omit the 10 (-9) factor (one billionth) for email
purposes and the units of WK(-4).
Martin Fleischmann , 0.85065
Mel
Miles , 0.8112
(Lower-Bound Method)
NHE (Pd-B) , 0.79350
NHE (codeposition) , 0.68
Stefan-Boltzmann , 0.754
Because the codeposition was giving significant excess power by the
third day, the NHE value becomes significantly smaller than the
theoretical Stefan-Boltzmann value. If the NHE method were accurate,
it should give the same constant for this same cell. Instead there is
a 14% difference in the NHE calculations.
The purpose of this email is to summarize some of the history
involving Martin Fleischamnn, the ICCF-5 proceedings paper by NHE,
and my results obtained at NHE in 1997-1998. . . .
Mel Miles
