I think we are basically on the same page in this discussion. The main
difference is that I suspect that the amount of heat being generated within
each Rossi device is not sufficient to boil all of the water that is entering
into it. Under that assumption I can not determine how it would be possible
for the water to remain below total fill after days or months of operation.
That liquid water would not pour out in liquid form if heated to for example to
130 C by the internal heating mechanism provided a pressure restriction device
is in place. This type of device was quite in evidence during a couple of
Rossi's last demonstrations.
No matter what form the water leaves the package in, it takes heat energy away
from the reactor somewhat proportional to the exiting temperature. In other
words, he can increase the rate of water flowing through his devices which will
lead to a lower temperature appearing inside assuming constant heat addition.
Likewise, if that liquid in not boiling, a thermal control loop can easily
maintain a desired set point. If allowed to boil, the temperature is much more
difficult to control accurately.
To operate a control loop one needs to have a temperature that resides above
the system output temperature by at least a small amount. If this is not done
then the internal heater would never need to be engaged if sufficient
temperature is available backwards through that outer port which arises from
some of the other devices. We saw evidence that Rossi's earlier ECATs
contained temperatures of up to 135 C which would certainly be sufficient to
control. And, of course the device would need to contain the pressure
associated with that temperature.
Now, my present hypothesis is that the liquid residing within each reactor
component is not boiling at all, or at least to a significant degree. The
vapor only appears in the output as a result of the flashing of the hot liquid
water into wet steam at that output pipe. This scenario appears to be entirely
possible as long as the water temperature is controlled at for example 130 C.
I showed calculations in an earlier series of posts that the vapor under that
condition would have a volume of almost 100 times the associated liquid. That
ratio tends to suggest that the water would be carried along for the ride
toward the customer device. Is this what is happening? I do not know but it
has a ring of truth to it if the customer is not getting the 1 MW as reported.
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen A. Lawrence <sa...@pobox.com>
To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Wed, Aug 24, 2016 1:09 pm
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Interesting Steam Calculation
On 08/24/2016 12:29 PM, David Roberson wrote:
Stephen you are assuming a design that is far different than Rossi's
previous devices. For most of the recent demonstrations Rossi had his
thermal generation components contained within a large thinned mass. The
incoming water essentially fell into a big boxy outer structure and came
into contact with the inner section at a multitude of locations where
it extracted heat through the fins.
But the shape really doesn't matter. It's just thermodynamics. As long
as it's a flow-through boiler the same conclusions must apply -- the water
comes in <somewhere>, flows along <some path>, turns to steam at <some
spacial location>, flows along <some path> as steam, and exits the reactor.
Whether it's a big box, a tea-kettle shaped vessel, or a collection of pipes
or a thin, wide sheet, there still must be a continuous flow from the
input to the output.
And there will be a line of demarcation between water and steam, with,
one may expect, higher temperatures on the steam side.
If (flow_rate * heat-of-vaporization + flow_rate *
heat-to-raise-to-boiling) is not exactly matched to the power generated,
either the effluent will be water (or water mixed with steam), or it will be
superheated steam, but in either case, as long as the power level and flow
rate are constant, the output temperature would be expected to be fixed, and
the "boiler" will contain at least some liquid water.
You misunderstood my point about immediate boiling.
Sorry! I see that now, I think.
I just wanted to express the thought that only a small volume of water
would remain in liquid form within the unit. Since it is assumed that
more heat is generated than needed to boil all of the water entering, it
becomes apparent that the temperature of the ECAT must rise and not remain
at the boiling point. This increase in temperature can be detected and
therefore a thermal loop can control it.
Yes. But no such loop has ever been described. From the beginning
there has been talk of how that could be done .... but it didn't come from
Rossi, only from those trying to explain the amazing coincidence of the "dry
steam" effluent never rising much above boiling.
And AFAIK no reason has ever been put forward to explain why you'd want
to keep the "dry steam" at the boiling point, rather than letting it go up
to, say, 120 C, which would totally eliminate any question of whether it was
"really steam" or just slightly pressurized water. If the temp had been
120C back in 2011 we wouldn't be having this discussion today. (But to push
the temperature that high, the Rossi reactors would have had to actually
work as claimed.)
Also, the vapor can be super heated by the additional hot surface on
its way to the outside port. And, indeed this is exactly the scenario
that could be used to generate dry steam if properly employed.
Yes. Exactly. But it would be very unlikely for it to stay within a
few degrees of boiling, which is the whole point.
Not once has Rossi demonstrated "dry steam" production with the steam
temperature sufficiently hotter than boiling to rule out the possibility
that the "steam" was mostly (by mass) liquid water.
So, in my attempt to understand how the gauges might be reading in
error I must assume that the liquid is not being boiled off within each of
the 24 or ? devices, but instead leaves in the liquid form which flashes
into a liquid, vapor combination. If the complete filling of the ECAT
portions by water does not take place then Jed's position is undermined
pretty much as you are describing.
Sorry, I didn't follow the bit about Jed's position being undermined if
the devices are not full of water.
To produce wet steam you need droplets of water exiting the device, but
that doesn't really require that the device be entirely filled with water.
Tea kettles are treacherous models for analysing the ecat (since they're
fill-once-and-boil rather than flow-through) but a tea kettle is still
informative in this case: A half full kettle can still produce wet steam.
It all depends on the arrangement of the heating element and how much
contact it has with the steam/water mixture after it leaves the surface of
the liquid water.
Ultimately, the geometry of the boiler doesn't matter. The issue is how
is the temperature prevented from rising significantly above boiling? If
we're assuming the things actually work as claimed and trying to understand
them in those terms, then speculation about how it could have been done is
irrelevant -- how does Rossi claim it was done? AFAIK he ignores the issue
and provides no explanation.
And, there is the related and equally important question, why is the
temperature prevented from rising significantly above boiling? One
possible answer to this is all too obvious, and unless you can think of an
alternative, I'll go with, "It's kept just above boiling to obfuscate the
question of whether it's actually dry steam or not". IOW it's kept at
boiling to make it easy to fake the results.
