From: "ChemE Stewart" <cheme...@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 6:28:37 AM
> The wire is not in the reactor, it is embedded in the insulating alumina > shell. That's a guess. But it might be true. I drew (and scanned) some diagrams of a possible structure following the March 2013 hotcats -- where there was a ceramic insert inside the outer steel tube, and round which the heater wire was strung, lengthways. But I now think that's not feasible. First, the new tube is too narrow. Secondly, it's not perfectly straight, so a ceramic wire-holder wouldn't slide in. (In the 2013 hotcat the outer cylinder was steel). They might be able to slide in a more flexible holder, eg made of mica, but there's no evidence for that. Setting aside the concerns that the nickel powder would have melted, it seems that the powder was easily poured out, which implies a smooth inner wall. So now we have even more guessing. Figure 2 was probably taken during the dummy run. The heaters are on, but there is no glow through the ceramic, though they are glowing outside the tube. Figure 10 from the dummy run shows slight evidence of spiral banding (orange-ish) from top-left to bottom-right in segments 1-2-3 4-5-6 and 7-8-9 : but this looks to be a coarser spiral than than the distinct bands of fig 12. Since we don't know which end is which, we can't even tell if this is in the same direction as the visible-light banding. Again, I complain that there are no IR pictures during the live run. Since there WAS visible banding they should have taken visible and IR pictures from the same angle and orientation. If the wire IS embedded in the ceramic, there may or may not be a gap around it. And the overall energy pathways could give bright-wires or dark-wires, depending on the relative balance of heat conduction, radiation in any gaps, and transmission through the ceramic. I'll put up my diagrams: they apply to the 2013 test, even if the don't in this one. ps : Overall, I'm sticking at "inconclusive".
