On Jun 24, 2011, at 9:14 PM, Joshua Cude wrote:
On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 1:53 PM, Horace Heffner
<hheff...@mtaonline.net> wrote:
It is notable that the power input varies depending on the
controller actions, that if the power input (plus any nuclear
output heat if any) should become less than that required to
convert all the input water to steam then the liquid excess will
eventually simply overflow, i.e. be pumped out into the hose and
down the drain.
I find this description (like Jed's and others') odd, with the term
"overflow". The system starts with liquid water flowing through it,
past the reactor, and probably never reaches the point you use as a
starting point where all the water is converted to steam.
I have no idea what you are talking about here. I do not mention
nor imply a "starting point". Maybe you confuse me with Jed.
So when the bp is reached, when the input power is 600W, some of
the water begins to change phase. That of course increases the
volume, and pushes the liquid ahead of it out. In that vertical
chimney, there's going to be all sorts of turbulence that will
likely produce a sputtering at first,
Yes, percolator type effects. Steam expansion, no matter where it
occurs in the device, will drive a liquid/gas mixture up the chimney
and out the port. The steam bubbles will form wherever the heating
elements are attached, I would assume, unless the powder chamber
itself is providing nuclear heat.
but then as the power increases, a mist that mixes with the steam
and proceeds down the hose.
The power is noted to be 770 W. If you assume no nuclear reaction
then that is all there is. It should only take minutes to reach
equilibrium.
After that, as the power increases further, more of the water
changes phase to absorb the additional heat, but the output will
still be a mixture of steam and mist at the boiling point. The
fraction of dry steam will increase as the power increases. If it
were ever to reach 5 kW (or so), then as the water passes the
reactor, it is all converted to steam.
That transition from 600W to 5 kW would have to correspond to an
increase in the temperature difference between the reactor and the
water by the same factor of 8 (in this case). That would take time,
which can be estimated by the time it takes to go from zero power
transfer to 600W, and corresponds to hours. Yet Rossi and his
believers assume that at the moment the bp is reached, or very soon
thereafter, there is a magical transition from 600W transfer to 5
kW transfer. It makes no sense.
I don;t see why you think it makes no sense. If you place a 5 kW
heater element in the device and turn it on then 5 Kw is being
delivered instantly. It takes very little time, seconds, for the
heat flow to go through metal walls and be delivered to the water.
The real problem is the question of just how much energy is delivered
by the E-cat and when. Only good calorimetry can determine that.
To come back to your scenario, if the power is then reduced a
little, some of the water entering the ecat will not change phase
but will be rapidly mixed with the fast moving steam to form a mist
again.
Have you ever watched a percolator. They don't deliver just
"mists". Besides, mists, on the order of a fog, carry little water
mass per volume.
I don't see this as an overflow.
You are unnecessarily quibbling about a word and speculating,
creating no meaningful dialog here as far as I am concerned.
Any liquid filling the hose will be blown apart by the steam
forming behind it.
This is nonsense. At 770 W the liquid will simply accumulate in the
hose and then be driven out by steam pressure. As I said earlier, a
transparent hose should offer some useful information, one way or the
other.
> Note that the pump rate is small, on the order of a few cc per
second, so it can take a while to fill up a hose held upright into
the air, even if the device itself is full of water - which
probably can not happen due to percolator type effects.
Right, except I don't find the comparison to hot beverage makers
very useful because this system has a clear inout and output, and a
pump that keeps the flow rate constant. Maybe an espresso maker
might be better, but I'd rather just think about the actual device
itself.
Nonsense! Percolators (at least some) cycle the liquid right back to
the boiling area. Not much different from a pumped flow of water,
other than the inlet temperature. It is the *principle* of the
lifting power of steam bubble expansion, wherever it occurs, and its
effect on water in the chimney that is key to understanding how the
calorimetry can be so far off. Personally I think "percolator
effect" provides a useful descriptive term to which most anyone can
relate. Since I conceived of this explanation, I certainly feel free
to call it whatever I chose.
Note also that if the input power is reduced (cycled) momentarily to
about 600 W that pure 100 °C water will be eventually pumped out the
exit port. The controller box is doing *something*, which Rossi
explicitly states is related to temperature and pressure. Not
knowing what that something is implies a need to do an overall
calorimetric energy balance for each experiment. Until that is
accomplished this is all useless talk from the peanut gallery. The
reaction chamber is 50 cc on some models. The water jacket and flue
may be less than that or more. If they are 50 CC too then at 2 cc/
sec they will fill up with 100 °C water in 25 seconds if the power is
about 600 W and flow about 2 cc/sec. Slightly more power than 600 W
and the steam bubbles formed will create a powerful percolator
effect, pushing all the liquid water forward, and the water near the
top of the chimney out the exit port. I don't see why "overflow"
is not an apt term for that, regardless of whether the driving force
is merely the pump itself or that combined with a percolator effect.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
