This is not surprising. My guess is that there is strong temperature inversion, and a prohibitive trigger temperature with instant quench. The trigger could be say at 800 C, and the inversion 1000 C, giving some room for error. There are zones and only one of them is externally heated. This is the insurance.
This amplification of input is why he has named it the way he has. You cannot EVER let normal fluctuations in the fuel temperature go below the trigger, or else the whole thing will instantly quench. You spread out the active material so that once you get over the trigger in one zone, it can then go over everywhere, and continues up, since the inversion pushes it up to the limit of heat transfer. The heater will be placed to heat one a small area in the reactor only - the "failsafe zone", so to speak. Jones -----Original Message----- From: Jed Rothwell Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: > That, also, makes it seem a little surprising that the joule heater > continues to be used *after* "ignition". It's contributing just 4% of > the total heat; you'd think they could just shut it off after the > thing starts up. > > Of course, the reacting surface area may be large enough that it stays > cooler than the heater, and perhaps the intense heat near the heater > wire has something to do with the reason they continue to use it after > "ignition". That is my guess. I think the AC heater wire is hotter than the active material. As I said, it is my understanding that heat and hydrogen pressure are the two control factors. I do not know how they work. I don't know which knob you twist to make the thing go. Rossi said that removing the AC heat completely is dangerous. That give me the willies. If the external electricity cuts off, will the machine overheat? Or if it is built in a self sustaining device and the generator fails, will it overheat or go out of control? It would be nice if the heat triggered the reaction, and removing the heat simply quenched it, but based on Rossi's comment that is is "dangerous" to run without the auxiliary heat, that is not the case. Who knows what to make of it! Rossi is hiding many details. - Jed
