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An Awesome Calibration and More

Written by Ryan Hunt on .

In the long week since my last post, we have been doing a lot of dry, boring calibration.  We have also done a lot of other work on calorimeters that I will now share.

A Calibration to be Proud of

In last week's episodes, our intrepid heroes had been battling the horrible, black, goo monster that came from the new mica pieces and collected on the Isotan wires in Cell 1.0.  We managed to cook it all out, as far as we can tell.  In the process we got enough data to form a good comparison baseline for the cell in Helium.  Once we load the Celani wire, we will run it in Helium to try to demonstrate that it is installed in a comparable manner to before.

Then we moved on to calibration runs in Hydrogen at 1.0 bar starting pressure.  The big question was whether the reconstructed cells with new glass, new wire supports, and all new wires inside would perform the same.  We let the hydrogen tests run over the weekend so we would have several runs to do statistical analysis with in case it proved to be different.  It turns out, to our relief, the cells performed extremely close to the way they did before.  This gives us a strong confidence in our cell's ability to behave in a very reproducible way.  Below is a comparison for cell 1.1 over the whole range. 

Here are comparisons for each cell in the range we are likely to run in.

On both cells, see how the new lines for each of the sensors fell very close to the original, and well within the confidence interval.  We decided it was close enough to combine the two sets of data and come up with a single averaged curve with confidence limits and derive a calibration equation from the most stable.  The result is a calibration that we are feeling really good about for this apparatus and it's ability to tell us we get more than a couple watts of excess energy from the Celani wire.

 

What this tells us is that over 14 calibration cycles, the temperature of the sensors averaged out to the lines indicated.  The variation in the data points (27 data points for each point from the ups and down steps) had a 99% confidence limit at the top and bottom dotted lines.  That means, as long as the system isn't altered some other way, temperatures above the dotted line would strongly indicate that there was excess energy being created.  We will be plotting all 3 temperatures vs input power as we watch this.

Here is all the data in spreadsheets.

From these graphs, it appears the uncertainty in power output will be in the 1 to 2 watt range.  Any opinions?  Who wants the data?

Next Step:

Load the Celani Wire into the cell (in process) and pull a vacuum on in before loading with Helium for a comparison run.  Then load with Hydrogen and attempt to trigger excess energy.

And more blog entries to come about the insulated stainless steel cell we are about to commission inside the air flow calorimeter.

 

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0 #9 David Roberson 2013-01-09 18:46
After you run the test with power applied to the Celani wire, it would be wise to do the same for power applied to the inactive one at the same steps.

Are you convinced that there will be a difference in the temperature reached in the absence of excess power depending upon which wire adds the internal heat? I hope that we can verify whether or not this is true before excess power complicates the measurement to a large extent.
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0 #8 Ryan Hunt 2013-01-09 16:01
The Helium has been loaded into the cell. After consideration, it seems to make more sense to do a test with the Celani wire and only use the first four steps. The purpose of the helium test is to demonstrate that the wire is installed comparably to the way the bare isotan control wire was. Using the NiCr wire would raise the question about how comparable it is.
We are modifying the columns in the data a slight bit, too. The server is still getting worked on, but should be available soon.
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0 #7 Sanjeev 2013-01-09 15:58
Great. It all turned out to be better than expected.
My question is was this all done only at 1 bar ? If yes, wouldn't you want to explore at higher pressures ?
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0 #6 Ryan Hunt 2013-01-09 14:38
The data does, indeed, seem to be having a problem getting to the public server. We are working on that and think is has something to do with a recent software upgrade on the HUGnet software. The good news is you haven't missed anything exciting. The cells sat overnight at room temperature with a vacuum on it. We will get the data flowing again and then load Helium into the cells and do a calibration test using the NiCr element, as was suggested.
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0 #5 Ecco 2013-01-09 12:25
Live data from the US cells isn't being streamed to the public, currently.
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0 #4 Eric Walker 2013-01-09 05:16
My thoughts, speaking with the authority of an inexperienced hobbyist: if the averages between the two sets of calibrations are the same, then they can be combined, as long as the spread of the combined runs is used to calculate the error. Eyeballing the "Cell 1.0" chart, it looks like there is an error in the internal thermocouple temperatures of approx. +/- 10C; I personally would like to err on the side of caution.

"That means, as long as the system isn't altered some other way, temperatures above the dotted line would strongly indicate that there was excess energy being created." This assumes there are no systematics, something that can be hard to judge if one hasn't been doing this for years.
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+1 #3 AlanG 2013-01-08 22:18
Here's another view of the six calibration cycles, for T_mica. Both cells are very stable. Lovely work Ryan!



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0 #2 David Roberson 2013-01-08 21:51
Be careful not to over heat the Celani wire. It would be wise to restrict the power as he did with his original experiment.

I would also recommend that indirect heating is used for the first few test runs since the temperature profile with both time and static should not depend upon which wire is driven. If indirect heating is used by applying power to the inactive wire any black goop problem will collect upon that wire.

Finally, you can apply the full 103 watts to the indirect heating wire without worrying about burning off the coating on the Celani wire.

I have a time domain analysis program that will detect excess power in a very sensitive manner. The outer glass temperature is the ideal one to use according to my simulations. The glass acts as a delaying and filtering process.

Good luck guys! You are doing a great job so let's get the results that we are all seeking.
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0 #1 Pekka Janhunen 2013-01-08 20:26
In some phase I thought that too rapid pressure reduction might damage the coating if the hydrogen comes out too rapidly. I'm not sure at all if this is a valid concern, but to play it safe, if you have a possibility to avoid such rapid pressure reductions with Celani wire, it might be an idea to do so.
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