Dynamic Vacuum Experiments Protocol, A.K.A: Protocol V2

Summarized in table format: V2.0 Protocol Table (read only)

In both US and the EU, we will have 2 cells running a new protocol as described below. One will be essentially the active cell and the other will be the control. They will operate in the same environment to allow for differential comparison.

In each case, after a few cycles of testing is complete (this might take few weeks), we will make the control active and see if it produces a similar effect. After a few cycles again we will attempt to damage the ability of one of the active cells and run some cycles again, lastly, we might pull the active wires from the cells and see if the calibrated heater wires show anything like the Celani wires.

Expectations

It is expected that we will only see PXs for the period until the loaded wire has either “burnt” all the hydrogen in the New Fire, or the dynamic vacuum and active wire heating has resulted in loss of hydrogen from the wire. When the wire passes a critical loading threshold, we will need to load the wire again and run the experiment another time, this constitutes a load and “burn” cycle. This will repeatedly show that loading with Hydrogen is required to create excess heat, but our version of this protocol goes a lot further.

Geography

The two cells in the EU will be run in Southern France and be managed by Mathieu Valat.

Cell EU1.3A : PRIMARY

Cell EU1.3B : CONTROL

The two cells in US will be run in Minnesota, USA and be managed by Ryan Hunt.

Cell US1.3A : PRIMARY

Cell US1.3B : CONTROL

Terminology

Heater wire

This is a NiChrome wire of similar resistance to the loaded 2L Celani wire (0.3mm diameter). Resistivity of Ni80Cr20 is 108µΩ.cm, Rloaded 2L=16Ω/m.  IT is chosen for having a resistance in the same general range as a celani wire after exposure to hydrogen.

Celani’s wire

400+ layer wire gently provided by Francesco Celani.

Dynamic vacuum

The cell is put under a continuous vacuum by leaving the vacuum pump on. The expected level of vacuum in the range of 2 to 5 mbar.

Primary

The first cell to have its main wire loaded with Hydrogen.

Control or Secondary

This is the cell that is last to be activated and acts as a control allowing us to differentially compare the two cells that are running in the same environment.

Protocol

1. Main wire is analysed with SEM.
2. Two V1.3 Celani-type cells each have a heater and main wire wrapped around a mica support on approximately 10cm long, with a spacing very close to what Pr. Celani is using in Rome.
3. Dynamic vacuum is applied to both cell during 3 hours (>10K seconds) ahead of the test in order to remove any moisture inside the cell.
4. Dynamic vacuum and 25W power applied to the heater wires during 9 hours to remove potential gas in wires.
5. Calibration of the cell under dynamic vacuum with:

1. 2.5W steps from 5W up to 25W in both cells using the Celani wire,
2. 2.5W steps from 5W up to 30W in both cells using the heating wire,

NOTE: each step least for 100 minutes (until full stabilisation is reached for more than 20 minutes),

3. apply 25W to the celani wires, keep steady here for 7 days.
4. Calculate the precision of measurement depending on the level of confidence required @95% and @99%.
5. restart the calibration until the precision reaches <0,5 W @95% confidence.
6. calculate the SB blackbody radiation coefficient for both cells A and B under 25W input.
7. plug these numbers in the general tab of the data stream interface.

6. Loading procedure of Celani’s wire:

1. load the primary cell with pure H2 under 3 bar of pressure,
2. put current in the NiChrome wire to passively heat by the Celani’s wire
3. adjust the power input to reach triggering temperature for the loading (approx 175°C),
4. the day after, let the cell cool down to room temperature,
5. pump down the H2 back to vacuum,
6. repeat this procedure from 6a three times, or ideally repeat cycle of warming-cooling cycles until the resistance ratio of the wire R/R0 is 0.8,

7. Under dynamic vacuum, apply current to the heating wire from 5W to 30W with 2.5 steps then from 5W to 25W with the Celani wire.
8. In the same conditions apply 25W on the celani wires for 9 days.
9. Then comes the interesting part:

1. after the first load and “burn” cycle iterations to seek optimal PXs and let it run for a duration long enough to discredit any chemical effect. Use the Celani wire to heat the cell.
2. this part will be allowed for the experimentalist operate changes to the system  suggested by the crowd.

10. The Celani’s wire inside the control cells are loaded (with H2) by using the heater wire using the same protocol described in 6. We must be sure of excess heat!
11. Both cells are running again, possibly a number of times through load and “burn” cycles
12. The primary in the US has an attempt made to “destroy or damage” its nano structures by putting too much current into it
13. Both cells are run again through a number of load and “burn” cycles
14. Main wire is removed from both Primary and control and same power is put through heater wire
15. Celani wires are analysed with SEM

Advantages

Removing the need altogether for calibration in any gas it solves

1. Possible killing of the effect by Argon calibrations
2. Possible absorption of He into the nanostructures/metal lattice that makes it difficult to load with hydrogen
3. Possible variations in calibration because of different gas pressures
4. Potential for gasses to take part in power generation
5. Issues surrounding atomic and molecular gas thermal conductivity
6. Potential for gasses interacting with other cell elements
7. Convective variations in calibrations
8. Partially the feedback effect of ambient temperature on wires

Taking gas out of the active run means

1. Much smaller powers are needed to achieve trigger temperature without complicating the cell design
2. Bigger signal to noise ratio potential
3. Cheaper power supply requirements for wider replication
4. Calibrations ONLY use the IR component of energy output from wires
5. No debate about the effect of changing gas pressure
6. No debate about convective variations
7. Reduced influence of ambient on wire temperature, only minimal radiative effects
8. No debate about oxidation or other gas related chemical energy sources
9. No debate about mono atomic / molecular gas influence
10. No debate about long term exposure damage to pressure gauge due to Hydrogen exposure

Not taking the cell apart to install active wire after calibrations means

1. No debate about change in position of any part of the experiment between calibration and active runs
2. Wires and gasses in cell are in exactly the same state except for Hydrogen loading in calibration and active runs

Having a second cell as control means

1. Ends debates about the influence of other potential environmental effects like EM, magnetic, light, sound, particle exposure etc.
2. Can do direct differential comparison
3. Without opening Control, can activate it and run it to confirm it has same active wires in LIVE data publishing
4. Can potentially disable the Primary with current overload under dynamic vacuum and test to see if effect is as pronounced

Having the entire differential test repeated in both US and EU provides

1. The chance to simultaneously LIVE verify our results
2. Doubles the chance to get it right first time
3. Allows us to test in two different controlled environments

Maintaining the Celani type glass cell has several advantages over steel cells

1. Can visually see the inactive and active components and their state
2. It will allow a wide range of potential triggering methods to be explored in the wider replications that would be harder with a steel cell, such as:-
4. UV, Laser and broad band flash light exposure stimulation
5. Inductive and RF stimulation of wires through glass
6. Electrostatic field stimulation - for instance, exposure of cell to Tesla apparatus

Open Issues

1. Still using SB approximation, though we could use curve matching etc.
2. Related to 1 – still not as good as flow calorimetry,
3. the steel cell and dual vacuum quartz/steel cells will address these issues between them.

Conclusions

If we can see 10% or more PXs in one of the primaries over its corresponding control, we are in a very strong position. If we see it in both, we have our lab rat.

Current status of the cells required for this test

There are 3 brand new cells being constructed for this test and one modification kit to be applied to the current EU cell. They will take on board all of the experience we have acquired to date.

• Centre core with tighter double helix winding of heater and main wires
• Coarser heater wire to ensure that we can raise the temperature sufficiently during loading
• Thin mica to lower heat dissipation from wire to support
• Macor discs at ends of mica to reduce losses to end flanges
• Long feedthroughs to enable the cell to run hotter
• Schott Duran glass to ensure maximum infra-red (IR) thermalisation
• No argon in calibration
• No He
• To be run in horizontal mode

Elements such as glass, mica, macor, wires, glass, thermocouples, data aggregation etc. will be the same for each of these four cells.

References:

Celani’s Draft Paper on this protocol

Evidence of anomalous heat evolution, on surface modified Constantan wires, after prolonged H2 absorption and subsequent measurements under dynamic vacuum.

Francesco Celani(1,2), E. Purchi(2), A. Nuvoli(2), A. Spallone(1,2), M. Nakamura(2),

B. Ortenzi(1), S. Pella(1), A. Ovidi(2,3), G. Vassallo(2,4), S. Bartalucci(1), E. Righi(1),

G. Trenta(1), [E. Marano(1,5) ?], [E. Paganini(5)+1, 2, ??]

Questions about this protocol:

What kind of power should be safe for the 400L wires we are using?

What baseline did Celani use to calculate 3 to 4 W excess during calibration step in a vacuum?

Do we need to do a calculation to show that the S/B calibration works out to match the input power with the S/B calculation output?  (To check out this baseline assumptions)

Celani’s monitor wire was 2L wire, ours is supposed to be inert NiCr.  We should run power through the active wire to calibrate and trigger.

Load with passive heating.  (paragraph at top of page 6)

Max rise of 0.7 W between preloading and post loading - within calibration error?

It then rose to 1.2 W after a month of run.  

Exterior cell temperature 93C and 80C for us at the same power level in calibration run.  What might account for this difference? - air flow