At the time this measurement was performed, the water had not been boiling and air is occupying the space above it. This would cause a high humidity, but I am not sure that much condensation would occur. Do you still think that the condensation would be adequate to keep the probe reading accurately?
-----Original Message----- From: Robert Lynn <robert.gulliver.l...@gmail.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Wed, Oct 26, 2011 12:43 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:ECAT Temperature Probe Not Touching Fins or Flow Rate High It can be determined that the probe measuring T2 is not in thermal contact with the heat sink attached to the core modules. This observation is clearly revealed by the following logic. At Mats Lewan’s October test time of 13:38 we first see output in the secondary loop of the heat exchanger. This is indicated by the rise in Tout (23.7 C to 26.3 C) as compared to the previous values. It is well known that output cannot be obtained at the heat exchanger unless the water within the ECAT is boiling. This requires a temperature of greater than 100 C. Also, we have established that some form of check valve is in series with the output water flow which further increases the required temperature. The pressure would not be sufficient to open the valve ahead of this point in time. The data from Mats’ report shows that the T2 reading at 13:38 is 94.8 C. We predict that this is not accurate and is displaying a value that is too low. My suspicion is that the reading is being influenced by the conduction of a measurable amount of heat energy along the probe to the outside case of the ECAT which has not been heated significantly as of that point in time. Also, we can be assured that the probe is not in contact with the heat sink fins since they are the source of the heat for the water. The temperature of this heat sink must be greater than the temperature of the water in order for heat to flow from it. The environment inside the reactor veseel would have a partial pressure of steam of about 0.85bar at 95°C, this steam will act to very rapidly heat anything within the reactor vessel to exactly the same temperatures (acting as a heat pipe) through the action of condensation, though it would be possible for dry surfaces to be hotter (superheating absorbs a releatively tiny amount of energy per degree of temperature change comapred to vaporisation). I therefore think your hypothesis of overflow is much more likely than that the thermocouple is under-reading. However another possiblity is that there is a significant opening from the reactor. While it is a reasonable surmise that there is a pressure relief valve given the way the reactor was emptied in the video from Sept demo, we still don't know don't know for sure, and it seems rather curious that the temp/pressure seems to get up to 2 bar gauge in the Sept test and 1.35bar in the Oct 6th test. It may instead simply be a small orifice. If steam does flow from the vessel to the heat exchanger (be it an orifice or a slightly leaky or non-ideal relief valve) then condensation would lead to a large flow of heat energy as the condensing steam casues a partial vacuum and is continually replaced.
