On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 10:52 PM, Berke Durak <[email protected]> wrote:
> Save for what was required to fill the pipes and the devices, the > input mass flow rate is obviously equal to the output mass flow rate. > It's not that obvious, considering at the published flow rate (as Roberson corrected me), it takes about 5 hours to fill the ecats. > What I meant is that the flow rate may have been lower at the > beginning during the starting phase. Maybe it was zero. Then what were they measuring at the output? In fact, the output increases gradually throughout the warmup period from about 30C to the boiling point. This suggests the ecats and pipes etc are filled, and the water is flowing through the system. > Maybe it was > very low, just enough to keep a sufficient water level in the > reactors. When the reaction then starts, you start increasing the > input mass flow rate to match the vaporization capacity. > There is no indication anywhere that the flow rate was changed, and Rossi's calculation assumes a constant flow rate. > > 4) Water temperatures in the modules rise. Steam production starts > little by little and the sensed "output steam temperature" increases. > The temperature profile does not fit this scenario. If the ecats were not full, there would be nothing flowing out of them until the onset of boiling, and then there would be a very steep increase in temperature. Then, to reach a rate of vaporization of 675 kg/h, from the onset of boiling (0 kg/h) would take much longer than to reach the boiling onset. So, you would see a rapid, almost step increase, then a very much longer plateau. Or, if the heating elements were not submerged, the steam temperature would exceed the boiling point. And if they started submerged, the boiling would reduce the level, exposing them and then increasing the temperature of the steam. In any case, there doesn't seem to be nearly enough time. Nearly all of the pre-heat period (2 hours) is used up in bringing the temperature up to the onset of boiling. Increasing the power transfer by another factor of 8 cannot happen in a few minutes. As a matter of fact, since the temperature was still below boiling at the 12:30 mark, the entire 8-fold increase is claimed to happen during the 5.5 hour run. > 5) The output power is now sufficient to vaporize water at 675 l/h. > 6) Pumps are turned on. Flow rate matches vaporization capacity. > It would be surprising if Rossi would know this rate beforehand, since he doesn't actually calculate the power until the end. He would need to get it to within +/- 5% to avoid exposing the heaters, or filling the ecats. Considering the power was throttled back at the last minute (how?), knowing the output to that accuracy ahead of time seems unlikely, considering the wide variation in (claimed) ecat performance from various reports. The overriding consideration is that all the observations fit perfectly with the simplest scenario of filled ecats ahead of time, a constant input and output mass flow rate, a very low rate of vaporization from 12:35 on, a closed or ineffective trap for the liquid water, and 70 kW power output. So, no matter what mental contortions one can come up with sufficient to fit a higher power output, they are *not necessary*, and therefore, the test does not represent unequivocal evidence of 470 kW power output. The evidence is very strong (accepting reported data) that it is between 70 and 470 kW, and fairly strong that it is close to 70 kW at least for a considerable time after boiling begins.
