On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 1:39 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 02/09/2011 01:28 PM, Terry Blanton wrote: >> On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Who, besides yourself, has said the reaction rate is being electrically >>> controlled to keep the steam temperature at 101.6 C? >>> >> Levi's report says the control box contains 5 digital PLC's. I >> presumed they were programmable logic controllers and regulated the >> "hot spots" in the reactor. >> >> I think Rossi's Ecat is far more complex than you give him credit. >> > > Indeed, perhaps it is. > > And in the demo they lost the main heater and the steam temperature and > flow rate remained unchanged, steam coming out at 101.6 C and flow rate > still determined by the fixed rate of the pump. Isn't that what Levi's > report also said? Or am I misremembering that? > > I would love to see a statement by someone a little closer to the core > team that the output temp is tightly regulated by the heater current, > via precise control of the reaction rate.
The heater is in five segments. My guess is there is a need to maintain a gradient in order to start the reactor and that is the work of the PLCs. They lost two of the five segments but were able to get the reactor to start regardless. Curiously, Levi says that they could not get it to self - sustain with only three working segments like they did in the December test. Kewl, eh? It broke but they still make it work. The old Rolls Royces had both a hand crank and a electric starter. :-) T
