I thought it was important to say more explicitly why I believe the Mills demo calorimetry may be flawed. I hope the enclosed diagram will come through to Vortex – I have seen others come through recently and I tried to make this a small image file. If it doesn’t come through, I apologize. Since I was not there to examine the calorimeter, I am describing what I believe was used - and this is just reasonable speculation.
If we had an ideal calorimeter, and some energy is input inside, Ein, one would expect to measure a total heat flux of the calorimeter, Qmeas, equal to Ein. If you put in 5 joules of input energy, the total integrated heat measured (Qmeas) should be 5 joules of heat. In the ideal calorimeter, all heat generated inside gets measured, 100%. Now, for Mills to measure his water/catalyst arc detonations, large electrodes must be inserted through the calorimeter walls so that the detonation occurs inside. In general, the apparatus to provide the source energy for the arc is outside of the calorimeter (physically large). In this simplified description, there are 2 ways for the heat to leave the calorimeter: 1) through the calorimeter’s heat sensing mechanism (measures Qmeas), and 2) through the arc conductors, call this heat Qcond. Since there is a large current flowing in the arc, it is nearly impossible to insert something in the conductor so as to directly measure the heat flow going through the conductor. So, what to do? Well, Ein is usually measurable electrically. To find Qcond, then perform a reference (blind) experiment. Don’t put anything inside the arc gap, fire it with energy, Ein1, measure Qmeas1 and calculate Qcond1 = Ein1 – Qmeas1 Now put in the water/catalyst in the arc gap and detonate it. You think Qcond should be the same (Qcond1) and you calculate the total energy output as Qtot2 = Qmeas2 + Qcond1 and you go on to calculate the COP as COP = (Qmeas2 + Qcond1)/Ein (presuming Ein is constant for now) So, where is the flaw in this? Consider (for a mental experiment) that for the blind you evacuated the calorimeter. When the arc is fired, all of its electrons will impact the positive electrode. Most of the energy will be deposited as heat directly in the electrode and will be conducted out as Qcond; very little will show up in Qmeas. In this case Qcond may be fairly close to Ein. Now lets say you put in some micro-encapsulated metal (so that you don’t short the electrodes), and you fire the arc. Most of the electrons will impact the metal in the gap and heat it to a quite high temperature. There will be some evaporation, and some material expelled (ejecta) that is very hot. In this case, more of Ein will be measured by the calorimeter as Qmeas, and Qcond will be smaller than the vacuum case. Now, put in the water/catalyst and fire the arc. As the demonstration showed, the detonation is a lot louder and brighter. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the heat generation was any more, but it does mean that there was more ejecta (including steam) and increased visible photon radiation. All of the ejecta (including steam) and the light carry energy away from the arc and Qcond is less still. Call Qmeas-wc the heat measured by the calorimeter when the water/catalyst is used and Qcond-blind the conductor heat calculated from the blind calibration calculation. When the COP is calculated as COP = (Qmeas-wc + Qcond-blind)/Ein it comes out higher than the real COP value because Qcond-blind is larger than the true (and not measurable) Qcond-wc, by probably a large amount. Intuition tells me that Qcond will be a fairly large part of the heat in all tests, so an error in the Qcond used in the COP calculation will create a similar, but slightly less error in the COP. Mills only demonstrated a COP of about 2. Because of this kind of error, the COP could easily have been closer to 1. This is an extremely difficult modified calorimeter to calibrate. Perhaps when Mills makes the arc source small enough to fit entirely in the calorimeter (except for some tiny capacitor charging wires), it will be possible to get an accurate measurement. Bob Higgins On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 12:44 PM, Jojo Iznart <jojoiznar...@gmail.com> wrote: > 2. I don't agree with your analysis of the Bomb Calorimetry. Larger > conductors if any should lessen the heat because its resistance to current > is lower. Furthermore, larger conductors have a larger and heavier thermal > mass and should therefore absorb heat and cause the temperature rise to be > lower. The heat output was estimated from the temperature rise. If there > is a large thermal mass like large conductors, it should cause a lower > temperature rise inside. If any, the modifications you object to would > "UNDER" estimate the output power. Besides, it matters not if there is a > large conductor. You claim that these larger conductor carried heat. > Yea??? heat from where to where. Everything is inside the calorimeter. > So, unless there was a big heat source behind the bomb calorimeter > "conducting" heat from the outside to the inside via the Large conductors > ..... Besides, they characterized the temp chart due to room temperature > effects. So, I find your objections illogical and unfounded. > >
