Stirling engine project

Objectives: The object is to produce a “calorimeter” based on a novel design that can measure the input to output power ratios of an electrically noisy and complex cold fusion system.  Instead of measurement of heat directly from a unit, the system will yield the equivalent of COP (COEFFICIENT OF PERFORMANCE) relating the efficiency of the test system. It does this in a way that is entirely immune to electrical input noise complications that normally arise in submerged plasma systems.  The goal is to produce a device that uses an auxiliary resistive heater that can be turned up and down until the overall system is “self sustaining”.  Some Cold fusion systems appear to give over 5 to 1 input to output power ratios.  If these turn out to be true values, this system should be capable of being a stand alone self sustaining device.  If such Cold fusion claims are not valid for the system under test, then resistive heating will be require to keep the system running.   The most immediate result will be a system that can correctly measure the input to output power ratios in cold fusion systems that are noisy or oscillate too quickly for conventional methods.  There are three very important spin-off of the work.  The first is gathering engineering data for the time that cold fusion cells can be used to produce useful power.  The second spin-off is that the project will give real time PR opportunities for cold fusion since the experiments will be web-casted.  The third more remote possibility is that if a cold fusion system is found to be in 5 to 10 to one excess power ratios; it would be possible to have a self-sustaining demonstration.

Background: Quite a few Cold fusion researchers have noticed that some higher current systems seem to show excess heat over 5 to 1 in submerged arc systems.  They are normally ones like Muzuno’s tungsten rod systems, and such.  Some have been recently been demonstrated in the last ICCF 11 conference.  The investigator also has some cells that appear to have over unity output.  The problem is that the input measures are very difficult.  These cells “sparkle”.  The investigator has seen sparkles as fast as 10’s of MHz when the cells are checked with photo detectors or electrical pickup loops.  One would normally think that a computerized data acquisition system could correctly monitor the input power.   However, proper measurement requires that both the voltage and current be measured at the exact same time and be checked more often than the 10’s of MHz speed of the “sparkles”.  This is beyond the capabilities of most practically available systems since most data logging systems check one variable at a time.   The bottom line is that when the cells are most active, they are sparkling faster than the sensors can handle or faster than the sensors can be poled by a computer.   Likewise, the measurement of heat is not as trivial as one may think.  Sensor placement, insulation changes, environmental changes, water flow rates, bubbles in flow systems and other things obscure many measurements.  The cells that seem to show the greatest excess ratios are normally those at power levels above 100W and often reach as high as 1000 watts.  This is a difficult level for most calorimeters since it requires massive water flows, tanks and so on to keep constant temperatures and large heat sinks or large refrigeration units to take care of the rejected heat.  Most labs just do not have large enough heat sinks to do a good job at these higher levels. This project circumvents these problems by not needing to absolutely measure heat flow, nor input electrical power.  This is achieved by converting the cell’s heat to mechanical energy (this integrates the power output) then to electrical energy which is used as input to the cell.  The electrical input power does not need to be measured nor does its heat output. Instead all that is required – other than providing a constant working environment- is to measure the DC electrical energy required to keep the engine running at a constant speed.  In practice, it should be possible to start the system by simply supplying power to a resistor network to heat the Stirling engine (amount determined by that which does so without a cell). Then all is required is to decrease the resistor power as the cell starts to produce heat.  The amount that the power to the resistor is backed off will indicate the excess power produced by the cell.  Thus, only a simple DC power measurement is required.

Work to be done: 1) Acquire a Whispergen Stirling engine/ generator 2) Run generator and become familiar with its operation 3) Plan modification approach 4) Construct Table/ display area. 5) Order and acquire insulation and environmental enclosure 6) Enclose environmentally controlled area. 7) Install blast shield and safety components 8) Order materials for cell 9) Design and plan mechanical items 10) Order mechanical support items and cooling loop items 11) Modify Engine so that the “hot point” can be accessed 12) Plan and acquire water cooling loop 13) Assemble and connect cooling loop 14) Re-wire ionization sensor 15) Re-wire and by pass oxygen sensor 16) Replace glow plug with cell system 17) Disconnect blower assembly from engine 18) Construct heat rejection device 19) Make a submerged plasma Cold Fusion cell that fits the access point 20)  Test CF cell system 21)  Modify and improve CF cell 22) Design, test and develop electrical system that takes generator output and conditions it for cell input. 23) Design, construct and test auxiliary DC heater input for the engine 24)  Assemble DC and battery components 25) Program computer to monitor DC power levels 26) Design, construct and mount engine RPM system to monitor motor 27) Provide a constant temperature environment 28)  Instrument environmental sensors 29) Program computer data collection system 30) Develop a large heat sink and exchange for engine cold side system 31) Mount and place web camera for live web feed of on-going project for public / private viewing. 32)  Program web viewing components 33)  Integrate Data viewing with web site 34)  Run system without cell for control, background information and baseline efficiencies. 35)  Acquire data on control runs 36)  Run system with cell in place. 37) Acquire data on cell runs 38)  Improve and redo data runs 39)  Try different cells and collect data. 40)  Document IP 41)  Prepare publications for IE and possibly some future ICCF meeting

Rational for Project Some of the more impressive claims of ratios of output power over input power in cold fusion experiments come from high voltage and high power systems.  One serious problem always seems to show up in energy measurements for underwater plasma discharged systems. It is difficult to measure accurately the input power to a system that is “sparking”.  The faster the “sparkles” the hard it is to measure both the voltage and current supplied at the same instant. This is the main source of uncertainty in such systems.   The proposed Stirling engine calorimeter is a way around this impasse.  This seems to be an entirely novel approach to energy measurements.  In fact it is not a calorimeter in the normal tem since it does not even require measurements of any temperatures, or flow rates.  The thermal output of a system is converted by an external combustion engine (Stirling engine) to mechanical energy, then by generator to electrical energy, then back to the system.  If the system perfectly converts the electrical energy to heat AND the engine, generator was 100% efficient it would just keep going.  In reality, the engine is only about 30% efficient (for our system) and you would need something like 3 to 5 times the excess heat produced by the system over its input to be self sustaining.  Some Cold Fusion systems have claimed such ratios.   However, for most systems some energy is required to be added to keep it running. In this proposed system, heat will be added to the Stirling engine by a simple DC resistor system. That way the only important measure is the simple auxiliary DC heater power.   All the complex input measures and other things are done away with and only a simple DC power system is required in theory.  In practice, the Stirling engine speed (rpm’s) and the environmental temperature, and cold sink temperature should be held constant.   Whispergen This is the Stirling engine chosen for the project.  It works around the 500 to 750W range and “converts over 90% of the fuel supplied into heat and electricity”. See: http://www.whispergen.com/main/dcwhispergen/ It will of course have to be modified for use with a plasma cell as its heat source instead of diesel. Auxiliary heater Since the cell may not give more heat out than electrical energy in, the difference will need to be “made up for” by some additional energy.  This will be supplied to the hot side of the Stirling engine by the use of resistors and a DC power supply.  The DC power input is the only critical measure for the system.   Power conditioning The cells require specific electrical input.  Some specialized circuitry will be added between the DC output of the Stirling engine/generator system and the cell.   Controls Some additional controls help the stability of the energy measurements.  These include working in a temperature controlled room, the measurement of the rotational speed of the engine, and the temperature of the cool side of the engine.  If the system runs long enough these are not critical since they will integrate out of the process if the system is truly self sustaining.  However for practical runs, these will be monitored and held constant.