From: David Roberson
If the ECAT device constitutes a positive feedback system
then it exhibits certain characteristics during operation. One feature is
that there likely will be a critical temperature at which the internally
generated heat exactly matches the heat that is escaping through its
surface. Any rise in temperature beyond this level will become self
sustaining and continue to increase until something limits in the system.
Earlier it was melting that stopped the activity and the device was ruined.
Recently with the HOT CAT, it looks as though Rossi is depending upon
surface radiation to keep the device from self destructing. If true, this
is a major improvement in device protection but might not help with safety
rules since the temperature would remain at a dangerous level until
something comes along to quench it.David, I like you analysis, but has anyone seen evidence of meltdown? After all, AR has claimed to have built hundreds of reactors in the last few years. Given Rossi's flair for the dramatic, my guess is that he would proudly show-off a picture of a meltdown, if he had it. But even if there is no visual proof of meltdown, "positive feedback" is surely a significant description of one (of several) dynamical forces operating in the system, but it may not be a major impediment, since it may be a slow kind of feedback. It is fruitless to base firm conclusions on what Rossi has said over the past 20 months, since much of it is self-contradictory but his first reactors were made of copper, which is not exactly ideal for any system where rapid runaway is remotely possible; plus he claims to have had reactors unattended in self-powered mode for months, using almost no feedback. The risk of meltdown could be another "Rossi-ism" for an imaginary scenario based on strong belief, much like the unproved gamma radiation, or the unproved nickel-to-copper transmutation, etc. Let's not forget that his Italian employees, if there really are any, suffered through a cold winter in Bologna with the "megawatt" BigCat sitting on the loading dock, as frigid as steel and bare nuts can get in Italy, so to speak. And if the recent HotCat was really balanced at ~1000C in actual testing (to be released in the future, of course) and in such a way that the net heat generated exactly matches the heat that is escaping from its surface, then that indicates inherent auto-control should not be too difficult to achieve, no? IOW - if there is a balance of positive and negative feedback at various plateau levels, then it should be possible to have some kind of emissive control with greater precision using a larger surface and thermal mass instead of the small reactor surface. The large surface area presumably would radiate at a predictable rate in the 100 C range if the interior was stable at 400C - well below the 1000C. Would you agree that this kind of inherent control is possible with larger area/lower temperature, based on the HotCat results being relatively accurate? Of course, what I have in mind relates more to the Reiter-effect (ZeoCat) than to the Rossi-effect, but either way, what is severely lacking in all of this, after 20 months of "warm regards" evasiveness, is long-term data ... data that changes a laboratory curiosity into a commercially relevant prospect. In actuality - Reiter has offered significantly more proof of continuous gainful operation than has Rossi. Jones
<<attachment: winmail.dat>>
