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Both Wires On

Written by Ryan Hunt on .

We are starting an experimental run with the NiCr wire turned on also.  The aim is to sweep a range of currents in the Celani wire that are more in the range of what he was demonstrating at.  The addition of the NiCr wire will achieve the higher cell temperature than the Celani wire would achieve alone at those power levels.

We are stepping through 18 points targeting roughly 16 to 32 volts, which will correspond to 1 to 2 amps in the active wire.  The NiCr wire will contribute about an additional 75% in heat to the cell.  We do not have an exactly comparable calibration curve for this, we have done tests with both wires early on that give us confidence that the current calibration based on the first Helium runs with the unloaded Celani wire will be suitable.  Those runs ran warmer than the previous ones, a fact I am attributing to the denser wraps making the center of the cell run a tad hotter.  That should hold as a conservative baseline for this test.  

Over the afternoon we have seen a couple interesting things, like the glass temp falling significantly for brief periods, which drove the excess energy calculations to much lower levels than than we saw all day yesterday.  Still struggling to explain that.

And I am still working on getting all the tests and data compiled into one index.

 

 

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0 #11 Ron B 2012-11-19 16:44
Ryan,
Have you noticed any gamma emissions since the tests have started? The test plan called for having this monitored by the computer, is that completed? Is there any plan to put that item on the log window?

Any idea what the least amount of time that Celani had a new wire running before he found any AH?
When I read the paper by Celani I noticed times which appeared to be days. Do you expect less than that and if so, why?
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0 #10 robiD 2012-11-19 15:59
Actually the T_mica got around 290°C but at 15:50 the P_in decreased from 113W to 100W, did you planned to do so, or was there any problem?
Would have been interesting to see what happened for long time around 290°C.
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0 #9 Ecco 2012-11-19 15:52
And also:

4) How much power can the heater wire withstand? It might be an idea trying to reach higher temperatures using only this one at high power - let's say 150-200W - since there are indications that passing current through the active wire might cause the anomalous heat effect to not appear in certain cases. This might be combined with the previous ideas.
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0 #8 Ecco 2012-11-19 15:48
@Ged: actually, before input power was backed off a bit, it hit 293 C, yet with no effect.

It would have been interesting to measure wire temperatures with the IR probe. I wonder if it actually went over 350 C locally.

As of now no excess heat has been clearly detectable yet; however there are several things that can be done before dismantling the reactor and trying to refit the existing wire, a new one or adding thermal insulation:

1) Increase temperatures further - if the activation temperature can be as high as 350 C, aim for 10% more.

2) Increase hydrogen pressure - perhaps 0.8 bar of hydrogen pressure (at working temperature) is not enough. Put back 3.5 bar or even attempt 7.0 bar (might need a lower input power to avoid explosions), which might also improve wire loading.

3) As somebody else suggested, try wrapping the reactor with a sheet of aluminum foil. This should help containing IR radiation within the reactor.
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0 #7 Ged 2012-11-19 15:38
Looks like the mica's hit 273 C, but I don't see any apparent affects yet.
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0 #6 Ecco 2012-11-19 11:13
@Ged: with a final total input power of 114W I suspect T_Mica won't be able to increase over 290° C, assuming no excess heat. Local peak temperatures on the active wire might be significantly higher than this, however (it would be nice if it heated uniformly).

@Enrique: maybe you mean this? docs.google.com/.../...

(to the MPMP team: please use zip compression for csv and xls files!)
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0 #5 Enrique 2012-11-19 11:07
Cant find test definitions in hugnetlab.com/hugnetlab/ is online ?
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0 #4 Ron B 2012-11-19 02:19
I've been reading a bit about the RW45 Ni/Alloy wire and found some interesting links
www.alloywire.com/.../

It seems that the wires op temp is good up to 400C (this is the raw wire) does anyone have any idea what the Celani wire is rated at? Does his process change the op parameters of the wire?
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0 #3 wookie 2012-11-19 00:36
@Ged

yeah, after all as i understand it, the unknown is still ahead and the behaviour at higher temps/pressure in this cell is too ?

truly exciting
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0 #2 Ged 2012-11-19 00:29
This is exciting. Maybe we can finally get past the "magical" 270 C and even up into the 300 C's, safely. Keeping an eye on it all! Really glad for this great idea suggestion.
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0 #1 wookie 2012-11-19 00:21
thanks for the update.

+75 % heat in the cell ? wasnt the max temperature in the previous run around 260 C ?

an index woul be awesome. i know u guys dont sleep much these days.

thank u!!
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