Right I'll just get to point: Maxwell's Demon is the earth, and its sensory and pass/blocking ability is its gravitation field.
It was not before recently that I came to this conclusion, although I realized the concept some time ago.
This has not been build yet so I do not yet have any practical proof here, however I want you to understand how this can work.
Okey, first lets say that you fill a normal stainless steel tank with water, the tank is uninsulated.
What ever the temperature in the water originally was, it will after some time absorb the temperature of the outside air completely, and so there will be an equal temperature everywhere inside the tank.
Now, what would happen if that tank was insulated instead?
Since the outside temperature would not be allowed inside it would just stay at the temperature it originally had when it was filled water, right?
Wrong. Since all the atoms inside the tank are in full chaos of movement and disorder (unless you had frozen the water to total zero) , there will be some microscopic misplacement of atoms all around inside, however at a macrocosmic view it will stay the same, presumably.....
But now the laws of buoyancy comes into play, because warm water weighs less that cold water, it will float up to the top while the cold waters will end up at the bottom. The total temperature of the water will stay the same, but there has been created a potential in temperature inside the tank from the bottom to the top.
Now you wouldn't maybe believe that there was much power in this at all, that the change in temperature is so minor that no machinery could possibly be powered by it?
At first this is quite true, however, the fact that the bottom will be colder than the original temperature will allow heat from its environment to be adsorbed, for example if a small heat absorber (a copper coil for instance) was connected to another coil outside.
Now it can start to get interesting.
If the outside temperature was for example 20 degrees Celsius, the bottom of the tank would have that temperature as its minimum, while a higher temperature would appear at the top.
The opposite would have happened if you had placed the coil at the top, and connected it to the outside temperature. Then the maximum temperature would be the the same as outside, while a lower temperature would exist at the bottom.
This is also the way you can magnify this process to create even higher temperatures.
By connecting the top coil to the bottom of yet another tank, the maximum temperature at this tank would be the minimum temperature of the next tank, and this process could be used in several tanks by connecting them as described here until the water would boil, or if oil or any other fluid was used, until a desired temperature was reached. Hot air does also have this tendency to float above the normal air or cold air, and people who live surrounded with mountains can also experience at times without much wind or sun that the temperature can get extremely cold, this is because the cold air "sinks" down in the container (the hole) and like a carpet of liquid maintains a freezing temperature until disturbed.
I am very interested in any kind of feedback (good or bad) you guys can give me or corrections to my assumptions. This is also very much like a heat pump, only that it uses no electricity.
Nabo00o
Actually nab, that general concept fits into what is rolling around in my head for some time now.
This principle is what I believe Daniel Pomerlou uses with his varying coil arrangement...through the use of the naturally occurring electrical current which the coils attract.
Regards...
Quote from: Cap-Z-ro on June 09, 2009, 06:34:59 PM
Actually nab, that general concept fits into what is rolling around in my head for some time now.
This principle is what I believe Daniel Pomerlou uses with his varying coil arrangement...through the use of the naturally occurring electrical current which the coils attract.
Regards...
What? Hmm i know about Pomerlou's work, its very interesting.
But this isn't about electricity at all. I was talking about heavy copper coils used to conducts heat, not electrons..... The coils is just there to make a lot of surface, it could by anything, like those heat sinks used in large amplifiers, as long as it dont rusts ;)
I realize that nab...I was speaking in terms of the flow of energy in general.
Keep in mind that Pomerlou is outside the box.
Regards...
Ah, I see what you are saying :D
By connecting them in such and such a way, he could decide "and see" where the backround magnetic field would enter and maybe by feedback be amplified....
I'm not sure exactly what is going on...only that an amplification or an increase in energy is involved.
Its still not clear to me yet...your thread just may be a bridge to a better understanding of what is going on here.
Regards...
Okey I attached a picture which should show the concept really clear, I hope it just shows up and doesn't stay hidden as a link.
The pipes between the tanks should be heat pipes, which are extremely efficient and fast at transporting heat, even at low temperature potentials.
Naboo
I'm not sure how much energy could be converted using something like this, but I have seen this before except it was done a bit different. In a very old book I once read there was something called a heat amplifier and it was a large tank filled with water and a smaller tank inside it, with a smaller tank inside that and smaller inside that. Each one pulling the heat from the previous tank and getting hotter. Same principal but different concept.
I think the power capability of the entire system depends on how large the density change in a given fluid is in response to a temperature change. If it is minor I would assume that only a small temperature gradient would appear. But if the fluid has a very fast density response to a temperature change, and especially in the region of normal temperate air, then very sharp gradients could probably be created, which would allow larger temperature amplifications for each tank to be made.
It may be that even common air has a much better density response than water (as most gases probably do), but it doesn't conduct heat nearly as good as a water.
So the ideal fluid for this system would probably be something which expands rapidly to heating, but is also at the same time good at conducting heat.
It might be that air, combined with heat sinks of large surfaces would work better.
Also, it is probably not necessary to make the tanks have a large volume, the only thing that really affects the process is how high you make them, and how well shielded it is from the outside temperature.
Naboo
Quote from: Nabo00o on June 11, 2009, 02:46:53 PM
It might be that air, combined with heat sinks of large surfaces would work better.
Also, it is probably not necessary to make the tanks have a large volume, the only thing that really affects the process is how high you make them, and how well shielded it is from the outside temperature.
Naboo
Luckily high performance heat shielding are easily available, namely radiant barriers. Two layers of a radiant barrier and some additional black pvc sheet can give a near 100% shielding rate. This project is quite easy to build. But I still don't fully understand it.
Thank you for your response Broli, but I think I should set a fine balance between economy and efficiency ;D Of course it doesn't have to be that expensive, and also, the less surface to cover the cheaper.
The principal is based on something we find just as much in nature as in human-made environments.
Have you ever been in a lake and dipped your feet's in the water? Well then you may have noticed that the water gets colder the further down you get, in addition it is almost always occurring in really sharp layers of temperature, although it isn't completely necessary in this invention.
The same thing happens in valleys where there are no big openings and when there is no wind.
As a gas, air has a very low mass-density and is also easy to compress, both with temperature and with force. Since it is easily compressible, a small change in temperature will quickly change the density, and in a fluid, anything with a lower mass density will always float when affected by gravity.
This is what I use in the tanks, and by insulating them from the outside temperature, they can create their own "equilibrium" by allowing all that 'sinks to sink', and all that 'floats to float'. The result is that the total heat of the medium is split up into two potentials but without any input of energy, just like Maxwell postulated, and he couldn't be disproved either.
The next step is to allow the ambient temperature outside to be absorbed into the bottom, since it is hotter, it "wants" to travel there. When enough heat has been absorbed and the bottom temperature is the same as outside, then the top will be hotter because gravity will separate the potentials.
The last step is to make this higher temperature enter the cold part of the next tank. Since this fluid is much hotter than the bottom of the next tank, it will transfer its heat there if allowed ( a heat pipe will make this process very fast and efficient).
By connecting several tanks in this manner a stable equilibrium will eventually be reached where the bottom of the first tank will hold the outside temperature, while the top of the last tank will hold some kind of value higher than the beginning. What this value could be depends on a lot of variables, though it would be interesting to map the most important ones :)
Naboo
Below are the ingredients:
1) large diameter pvc pipes + caps
2) heat exchanger coils
3) radiant barrier
4) plastic insulation
5) optional: black white plastic sheeting used in grow rooms.
6) lots of duct tape
7) a thermometer with a long probe that you can stick in the last tube
The expensive part will probably be the heat exchanger coils unless you can make them yourself from copper tubes. One roll of any insulation can insulate MANY tubes.
Great set of pictures there, but you forgot the heat pipe, and I have a feeling that it will be the most expensive part. Btw, the coils could be replaced by anything which conducts heat well, we got lots of metal scrap lying around here, some stainless too...
Also, in what kind of business do you think they sell large pvc pipes? Probably not in your local plumbing store ;D Hmm.....
120mm diamater and maybe 2m length for each pipe should be enough no?
Yes.... Damn I think the picture needs some change, this system will be totally different than what I had mind.
Connecting a bunch of those pipes together, maybe in groups of eight, now that would have been interesting!
I realize I shouldn't be thinking about volume at all when this system is so small and just meant to be tested.
First of all we should try to guarantee a positive increase in temperature, and a couple of these pipes connected together with a little isolation in between is no big hazel to build :D
Even if unlikely, I suggest adding a pressure safety valve on the last pipe, just in case steam builds up, though I don't know how many pipes that would be needed to make it happen....
Naboo
I was thinking PVC pipe, but with one pipe inside the other and using a vacuum in the wall spacing to form a large thermos bottle.
Then just fill the inner tube with water and three thermocouple thermometers, one at the top, center and bottom, shake it up well and see how well it separates.
Once the separation rate is recorded it could be used to calculate any practical application.
So you mean like using one larger pvc pipe to isolate the other smaller one, with vacuum?
Do you not think that any where close to a vacuum would shatter the pipes, since they are only made of plastic?
Was this also what you talked about last time, because I envisioned that you meant almost what I suggested here, only that they were instead placed inside each other, with isolation in between.
Sorry if I misunderstood you, but I just wonder if it will be more practical than having them placed side by side.
If you meant more units in one cylinder then a heat pipe solution would be quite complicated, but maybe that "heat amplifier" you talked about did it in another way?
Naboo
@Nabo00o
No, the vacuum idea is something totally different than the other tank inside a tank heat amplifier from the early days.
The PVC vacuum bottle concept is just to insulate the inner tank chamber to get an accurate test of heat separation in the water with the smallest outside influence as possible.
It should not be a problem since a total vacuum is only about 15psi.
For thermal protection try carbon fiber, http://shop.ebay.com/items/?_nkw=carbon+fiber+cloth&_sacat=0&_trksid=p3286.m270.l1311&LH_BIN=1&LH_IncludeSIF=1&_dmpt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&_odkw=carbon+fiber+sheet+kit&_osacat=0
more info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_shuttle_thermal_protection_system
Just throwing out ideas but would the idea still work if you have it built in pipe sections? Use a copper or aluminum on the top and bottom of next pipe. This way it could be modular just add more on top.
It could, but you see what you done here is really just building one big pipe.
What matter is height and not the volume, and I think by placing several different layers in one pipe, or just stacking one pipe on the next one will only make it harder, and unnecessary so.
You can just as easily use one long pipe, but since it is unpractical (and hard to find) in such lengths it would be easier to stack several of them side by side, and connect them in series, if that description fits here.
I think at least for now if no better ideas surface, that the normal 120 mm wide 2 meter long pvc tube would fit the job perfect, of course any variant in length and thickness wouldn't be any big problem either.
Naboo
Edit: Btw is it Blender you used for the image, I'm just starting to learn the program myself :D
I have an 80ft deep well that I don't use and that is why I was thinking of PVC pipe with vacuum insulation.
I could stack a column of 10" dia. pipe 80ft long and just supply some ambient heat to the bottom. The column should separate to a reasonably high temperature at the top with the vacuum insulation along the entire length.
I would still need to do a single test segment and get the numbers first to determine if any real value exists in this concept.
This may end up being a good way to extract geothermal heat even from a 50F ground temperature. You could have hot water year round for free!
Wow thats pretty deep, and yeah I can understand why you would want to test if this works at all to begin with.
Also I would recommend that you first try everything out with pure air, because air does truly have a tendency to separate into temperature layers when not disturbed.
And in a way you could call it geotermal heat, but remember, its not from the ground, its from the normal air around you that the heat is extracted. Call it gravitermal or buoyatermal heat instead ;D
Also if you had the time and proper measuring devices, you should test what the difference in temperature between the bottom and top of two equally long and insulated pipes can be, one which is filled with water and the other with air.
I have a feeling that the one with air may give a higher temperature but a lower supply rate than the one filled with water. I don't really know how oil would behave but I know it would be expensive and risky to fill a well full of it :D
Btw I get what you're saying now, if it is in the middle of the winter a four time amplification wouldn't do you much good if the temperature was at -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit).
Naboo
It may be possible to calculate the heat separation by using some charts I found.
I think this is an interesting project.If the temp difference can be made great enought it could drive a miter wheel which could in turn, turn a generator to make electricity.The tank could absorb the heat during the day and then release it at night thus turning the wheel nearly 24 hours around the clock.It would be a solar heating project of sorts since most heat on earth comes from the sun except for that which comes from the earth's core.Triffid
Yes those are really handy to have, and I see water will actually increase its volume with around 4.3% if heated from 4 up to 100 degrees.
This is in contrast to gases which will increase their volume by 33% when heated from 0 to 100 degrees.
One thing which might influence these figures is the static increase of water pressure as you go down in meters, in your case it was about 24 meters.
I checked a converter in Opera and it seem 10.4 meters will give you one bar of pressure, and 24 meters will give about 2.34 bars. A change in pressure will give some change in temperature so it is worth taking into account.
Also here is a useful link about air pressure and the gas laws.
http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/152.mf1i.spring02/ThermProps.htm (http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/152.mf1i.spring02/ThermProps.htm)
Quote from: triffid on June 12, 2009, 02:44:04 PM
I think this is an interesting project.If the temp difference can be made great enought it could drive a miter wheel which could in turn, turn a generator to make electricity.The tank could absorb the heat during the day and then release it at night thus turning the wheel nearly 24 hours around the clock.It would be a solar heating project of sorts since most heat on earth comes from the sun except for that which comes from the earth's core.Triffid
I haven't heard of the miter wheel before, but yes, if it could generate enough heat all common machinery should be able to be powered. One idea is, that if you could maybe make the pvc tubes generate up to 70 degrees Celsius in temperature, you could connect the last tube to a more powerful steel tube which could safely bring the water up to 100 degrees without risking to melt or blow up.
Also as there is some similarities with this tread and the heat pump tread, in both I do not believe that I am using either solar heat or any heat source to make the potentials. The total temperature of this system and its surroundings will be the same at all time, but inside there will appear a potential difference of temperature.
This means that no heat is "used up", in fact I believe there exists almost no machinery that can actually convert heat into mechanical motion, what we most commonly use is difference of pressure and temperature, not the actual heat itself, and so the total temperature of Earth would absolutely not have decreased if its entire population had used this or the heat pump technology to make extra energy.
I am not saying that the energy appears out of nowhere, but I don't believe that its source is a physical one.
Naboo
You can use a sterling heat engine or even some high tech peltier devices to convert the heat to electric directly.
The best part is both these devices need a heat sink or cool side also, so you can just put the heat back into the first tank!
You would only need some ambient heat to get up to working temperature, then it would just recycle the heat and keep producing electricity. It would be a true gravity machine!
Quote from: lumen on June 12, 2009, 04:52:49 PM
You can use a sterling heat engine or even some high tech peltier devices to convert the heat to electric directly.
The best part is both these devices need a heat sink or cool side also, so you can just put the heat back into the first tank!
You would only need some ambient heat to get up to working temperature, then it would just recycle the heat and keep producing electricity. It would be a true gravity machine!
Yes that was exactly my thought, this is why you could put the entire "power plant" into a "box", isolate it from the environment and have a wire coming out, giving you free electricity. In the heat pump scenario you would have two wires, one input and one output, with the out wire giving more than you put in because of the heat pump's extreme efficiency of separating heat into temperature potential.
Of course we do not need to put it in a box, but it would prove the point that once some environmental heat has been absorbed and placed in the loop inside, it would work much more like a medium for energy production than the source of energy itself.
So I guess the first thing to test now is to measure how well heat can be separated in a pipe isolated at the top, and absorbing at the bottom. If we could just get a few degrees of difference top-to-bottom, and before waiting too many hours, this could really spark the beginning of whole new way to heat homes and and buildings, and eventually even fuel todays power hungry home electrical needs.
Well, maybe..... We should always dream. And never say anything is impossible, at least not before we try it. Naboo
Quote from: Nabo00o on June 13, 2009, 11:46:12 AM
Yes that was exactly my thought, this is why you could put the entire "power plant" into a "box", isolate it from the environment and have a wire coming out, giving you free electricity. In the heat pump scenario you would have two wires, one input and one output, with the out wire giving more than you put in because of the heat pump's extreme efficiency of separating heat into temperature potential.
All that is needed is two extremes. I found this interesting motor made of muscle wire on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR2f_NE6j4I
One side contracts when hitting the cold water while the other expands when hitting the warm water.
Quote from: DreamThinkBuild on June 13, 2009, 05:35:24 PM
All that is needed is two extremes. I found this interesting motor made of muscle wire on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR2f_NE6j4I
One side contracts when hitting the cold water while the other expands when hitting the warm water.
Hmm I've never seen that one before, and I like the rpm it gets even when it is loosely put together :)
But like a sterling engine it is possible to use at a not too extreme temperature, and this might be less complicated to make also. Do you know how it works? I thought muscle tissue was exited by signals of electricity in the body?
Muscle wire is wire that expands when a current passes through or heat is applied. Neat stuff for small robotic projects. It contracts when it gets cold, although the drawback is the slow return. With the motor in the video using ice quickly contracts the metal. I'm assuming in the video that if the other tank is boiling water then as the wire expands on one side it pushes up on the wheel which feeds the wire into the cold tank which pulls the wheel. Pushes on the warm side pulls on the cold side then loops back.
Here's some more info on the wire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_memory_alloy
Seems activity dropped down somewhat.....
Anyway, I just wanted to add that if a thin pipe is used, like the one we just have discussed, the inner wall should actually as well be isolated from the working fluid. I think it matters a whole lot if we use water, and a little less if we use air, this is because air doesn't transfer its heat as fast as the water does to the inner wall material (plastic, metal or anything). The problem is that even though the fluid is isolated from its outside environment, a relatively good heat conductor such as PVC would constantly work against the creation of a temperature gradient inside the pipe by transmitting heat from the top to the bottom, thereby severely limiting the efficiency.
I believe that this is a real problem with the design, and does probably make it necessary to increase the width slightly, just to compensate for the volume taken by isolation.
Do any of you know of an insulator that would fit this task, to be thin, water proof (or at least capable to withstand water) and at the same time be a good insulator?
Naboo
I know its been awhile since anything happened on this tread, partly because I have focused on other projects for the last months. Still I just want to inform you that the phenomena which cause the temperature to change is a called a temperature inversion.
You can check out the wiki page on it, at least they have some information regarding the process:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(meteorology) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(meteorology))
1 year later and I still think this concept has merit. I just remembered it and wondered why it died off. It would be very easy to confirm.
You would be right about choosing a bad thermal conductor as the container. PVC in itself is a bad thermal conductor but some companies actually make tube shaped polyurethane like seen here:
http://www.coolag.co.za/products/ (http://www.coolag.co.za/products/)
This could be inserted in the PVC pipe to get the thermal conductivity further down.
But I do have one question relating to the concept. You say that without buoyancy the fluid in the container will take the temperature of the bottom coil. And this is where it gets a bit confusing for me. So let's say the temperature is 20°C uniformly distributed. Now you introduce buoyancy, wouldn't the temperature become lower than 20°C at the bottom and higher at the top? Because the total sum has to become 20°C? In your explanation you prorpose that the lower temperature would match the environment.
Of course if this is true it wouldn't change much in fact I think it would aid the concept more.
I also forgot to mention the test. You don't need a whole array, just one long isolated tube would do. You keep one temperature probe at the top and one at the bottom, if the latter goes from bottom to top it has to preferably be non metal or it might act as a short circuit for the gradient and defeat the purpose. This experiment would show the feasibility and give some numbers on how much temperature difference arises using x m height. Luckily buoyancy only needs hight so the tube doesn't have to be large in diameter but I think using less volume would make the gradient appear quicker but it would also be easier to disrupt.
This is what they would call a proof of concept.
Quote from: broli on August 03, 2010, 04:33:50 PM
I also forgot to mention the test. You don't need a whole array, just one long isolated tube would do. You keep one temperature probe at the top and one at the bottom, if the latter goes from bottom to top it has to preferably be non metal or it might act as a short circuit for the gradient and defeat the purpose. This experiment would show the feasibility and give some numbers on how much temperature difference arises using x m height. Luckily buoyancy only needs hight so the tube doesn't have to be large in diameter but I think using less volume would make the gradient appear quicker but it would also be easier to disrupt.
This is what they would call a proof of concept.
I did build such a test device!
I placed a 3" diameter pvc pipe inside a 4" diameter pipe and used a vacuum pump to evacuate the cavity between the tubes to work as an insulator.
I had installed temperature probes in each end (digital cooking thermometers) to see the results.
After leaving it in the shed, standing on end for a few days, the probes checked exactly the same temperature.
I thought it was working at one point when the upper was a few degrees higher, but it was the result of an increase in the ambient temperature near the ceiling.
It does seem the results should have been better, but I am convinced that you would probably get more energy by raising a large weight when the moon is overhead, and extracting the energy when the moon is on the other side of the earth. ;)
Quote from: lumen on August 03, 2010, 04:46:20 PM
I did build such a test device!
I placed a 3" diameter pvc pipe inside a 4" diameter pipe and used a vacuum pump to evacuate the cavity between the tubes to work as an insulator.
I had installed temperature probes in each end (digital cooking thermometers) to see the results.
After leaving it in the shed, standing on end for a few days, the probes checked exactly the same temperature.
I thought it was working at one point when the upper was a few degrees higher, but it was the result of an increase in the ambient temperature near the ceiling.
It does seem the results should have been better, but I am convinced that you would probably get more energy by raising a large weight when the moon is overhead, and extracting the energy when the moon is on the other side of the earth. ;)
Interesting but you didn't mention the two most important parameters. What was the height of the tube and what fluid or gas did you use? Also how could the temperature probe be affected by the ceiling if it was supposed to be inside the insulated tube? And finally, what was the accuracy of your thermometers?
And don't be so hasty with debunking it ;D . Only a fool would conclude final results after one test.
Hey Broli, yeah it has been a while, actually also a while since I have been on the forum.
First I think something like the insulator you proposed would work very well, as long as it is thin enough to allow some water or other fluid left inside.
Second, here is how I see it. If there were no buoyancy, then the temperature should have remained at whatever it was to begin with, and probably equally distributed all inside the volume.
When we then introduce heat exchangers like the coils, the temperature inside and outside should equal with enough time, so no gradients there.
Okey, to the confusion. With buoyancy, but 'without' the heat exchanger, the bottom would be colder then the otherwise average inside temperature, and this would also keep the inside temperature as a total conserved. But since we have a heat exchanger at the bottom, it will fight that change and keep the bottom at the outside temperature, given its heat conductive capacity is higher than the inside buoyancy forced temperature separation, which it probably is.....
So the bottom will stay at the outside temperature, but there should at the same time be created a gradient, and the top of that gradient must be at some value higher than the original temperature, because of the methods here used. At least I strongly believe so.
And from here it is a simple task of connecting the top high temperature of one tube to the bottom low temperature of the next tube, thus helping the heat to flow, and kinda works like connecting two or more batteries in series. If we want this heat to be transferred at a fast rate, something called a heat pipe would aid this process tremendously, but it is probably not cheap at a bigger scale than the one found in my laptop's cpu.
Also...... I have had some new ideas about this concept, partially inspired by the vortex tube.
Since gravity decides the power of buoyancy, what about replacing that force with centrifugal force, which can be much much higher....
Julian
Quote from: broli on August 03, 2010, 04:50:59 PM
Interesting but you didn't mention the two most important parameters. What was the height of the tube and what fluid or gas did you use? Also how could the temperature probe be affected by the ceiling if it was supposed to be inside the insulated tube? And finally, what was the accuracy of your thermometers?
And don't be so hasty with debunking it ;D . Only a fool would conclude final results after one test.
Hmm, if he used the well idea he talked about earlier it is many many meters.
Otherwise there might also be some holes in my theory about water's ability to do this, although I think I have heard mention of it in other situations. I would believe air could work better, but give less capacity, maybe.....
Actual temperature inversion means that air for example will create a very thin layer between hot and cold air which keeps them separated, but my idea doesn't exclusively rely on it....
Julian
Quote from: Nabo00o on August 03, 2010, 05:26:51 PM
Hey Broli, yeah it has been a while, actually also a while since I have been on the forum.
First I think something like the insulator you proposed would work very well, as long as it is thin enough to allow some water or other fluid left inside.
Second, here is how I see it. If there were no buoyancy, then the temperature should have remained at whatever it was to begin with, and probably equally distributed all inside the volume.
When we then introduce heat exchangers like the coils, the temperature inside and outside should equal with enough time, so no gradients there.
Okey, to the confusion. With buoyancy, but 'without' the heat exchanger, the bottom would be colder then the otherwise average inside temperature, and this would also keep the inside temperature as a total conserved. But since we have a heat exchanger at the bottom, it will fight that change and keep the bottom at the outside temperature, given its heat conductive capacity is higher than the inside buoyancy forced temperature separation, which it probably is.....
So the bottom will stay at the outside temperature, but there should at the same time be created a gradient, and the top of that gradient must be at some value higher than the original temperature, because of the methods here used. At least I strongly believe so.
And from here it is a simple task of connecting the top high temperature of one tube to the bottom low temperature of the next tube, thus helping the heat to flow, and kinda works like connecting two or more batteries in series. If we want this heat to be transferred at a fast rate, something called a heat pipe would aid this process tremendously, but it is probably not cheap at a bigger scale than the one found in my laptop's cpu.
Also...... I have had some new ideas about this concept, partially inspired by the vortex tube.
Since gravity decides the power of buoyancy, what about replacing that force with centrifugal force, which can be much much higher....
Julian
That's a very good idea. The force can be easily made 10,000 time stronger than gravity. But it would be much more complex than the array solution. I believe lumen's experiment could be successful if the height was raised more and insulated better. This would give use a good constant as to the delta of temperate compared to acceleration of gravity. But like he suggested I believe it's small. If for instance it's 0.001°C per meter then we would need many kilometers :P . But making it 10,000x bigger would result in perhaps 10°C per meter in radius. Which is much more interesting.
But to be honest this is the kind of research requiring some big funding.
Quote from: broli on August 03, 2010, 04:50:59 PM
Interesting but you didn't mention the two most important parameters. What was the height of the tube and what fluid or gas did you use? Also how could the temperature probe be affected by the ceiling if it was supposed to be inside the insulated tube? And finally, what was the accuracy of your thermometers?
And don't be so hasty with debunking it ;D . Only a fool would conclude final results after one test.
@Broli,
I was mostly trying to avoid all the details, but the test ran for about 3 months because I was so disappointed I just left it there and every time I went out to the shed, I would look at it.
The cooking thermometers are only accurate to one degree F, but they read exactly the same. In fact they were so well matched, I could unplug them from the thermocouple and swap them and they would still read the same, or the same difference.
The tube was built from full length 10 foot tubes, and I had a fill plug on one end. I originally started with warm water and shook it up to make everything equal at the start, and it was.
I did see about a two degree change with the top warmer shortly after starting and thought it was going to show some good results, but it just went down hill from there.
I also bought a vacuum gauge to mount on the tube to monitor the vacuum status but the test showed poor results and I never installed the gauge.
The gauge would have been important since I knew the starting vacuum was about 23in Hg using a refrigeration vac pump, but the final vacuum when I finally dismantled the device was zero.
So given that in the end the main insulator was missing, and that I have no way to know when it went dead, the final results are inconclusive.
I thought this is important since I don't want to discourage anyone from doing their own testing by showing the results are conclusive when they are not.
@lumen
I am very glad that you actually built a test unit to see if it could work. It sounded very tempting and easy, but maybe it wasn't that simple :)
In any case I should as well try to make a simple setup and see if it could register at least a little bit.
But yeah, this is one of those experiments primarily about proving a point, rather than doing something useful..., which again might be a bad goal.
@Broli
When I first thought of using rotation, I thought of a big wheel rotating with fluid inside, and somehow tap the temperature gradient inside it, but it would be very complex.
Then, what if we instead have a stationary wheel-shaped storage with fluid inside, where a single and simple propeller accelerates the fluid to very high speeds. It would be much easier to collect the heat from such a device, and in a way it resembles the vortex tube.
Julian
Quote from: Nabo00o on August 03, 2010, 07:05:25 PM
@lumen
I am very glad that you actually built a test unit to see if it could work. It sounded very tempting and easy, but maybe it wasn't that simple :)
In any case I should as well try to make a simple setup and see if it could register at least a little bit.
But yeah, this is one of those experiments primarily about proving a point, rather than doing something useful..., which again might be a bad goal.
@Broli
When I first thought of using rotation, I thought of a big wheel rotating with fluid inside, and somehow tap the temperature gradient inside it, but it would be very complex.
Then, what if we instead have a stationary wheel-shaped storage with fluid inside, where a single and simple propeller accelerates the fluid to very high speeds. It would be much easier to collect the heat from such a device, and in a way it resembles the vortex tube.
Julian
Julian, you're always one step ahead. In my head I had this monstrous device stacked, connected with others and filled with water. But your solution is much more elegant. It's funny I didn't even think about that seeing I built magnetic stirs to make water vortices.
This puts it back in the world of the garage tinkerer. Good thinking ;) .
Thank you Broli.
But if it would work is another hard question.
Since the fluid is constantly moving I wonder if it could work like the original and stabilize.
This reminds me of those centrifuges they use to separate heavier particles from lighter ones, but can it separate temperature??? ........
We know it works on liquids by accelerating seperation between different densities, for instance a blood centrifuge or even an oil centrifuge which separates oil from water. So why would it break down for temperate.
The only reason I can think of for it to break down is if the motion gets violent for some reason and turbulence arises breaking the nice circular flow of the water. You can do that by throwing something in the water :P . Other than that I see no reason why it wouldn't show whether the concept has merit or not.
I agree that it could maybe work all though it might turn out that other fluids such as air would work better (which wouldn't necessarily be a problem....)
I could imagine using a Bedini trigger and a spinning neo-magnet, combined with another larger neo-magnet for levitation support would have very little friction, as it would not even touch the container...
The end goal should in any case be that this is as simple and practical as possible for the inventor to construct, and that is also one of the good things about Bedini circuits.
Julian
I know this is an old thread, but I want to put in some ideas. Gravity is affecting weight the same way as a centrifugal force do. If we have a wheel with many tubes (acting as spokes) which is filled with water. Let this wheel have a given radius. The severe pressure at the outer edge at high rpm will cause the temperature difference to be much grater, and the centrifugal forces could be 100 times the force of gravity. The inner part of the tubes would be boiling at 1 bar pressure, but the water at the outer edge would be very cold.
I have no clue about this, because I have never tried, but if it is true that water in an insulated tank will "automaticly" have hotter water on the top, something tells me that we can create a huge temperatur difference by applying next to no energy input at all. This difference can for sure be harnessed just by maintain the rpm of the wheel.
EDIT: I just measured the water density at boiling point and at 4 degrees celcius. The difference is 983g for one litre boiling hot water, and 1035g for 1 litre cold water. This is done with a 0.1g resolution kitchen scale. The difference is anyways about 5% density. This is much more that I had expected. Maybe I have to do more tests....or google it.
Low-Q thank you so much for bringing this up again! After I read your reply I got interested and watched some of my first posts in this tread and one statement give me another idea:
QuoteI think the power capability of the entire system depends on how large the density change in a given fluid is in response to a temperature change. If it is minor I would assume that only a small temperature gradient would appear. But if the fluid has a very fast density response to a temperature change, and especially in the region of normal temperate air, then very sharp gradients could probably be created, which would allow larger temperature amplifications for each tank to be made.
Do you see what I am getting at?
What happens if water were heated above its boiling point, just before or under the process?
It would evaporate, its density would explode, and its temperature would drop immensely!
Phase change can possibly be a key to make this type of a machine terribly efficient, or in other words increase its power output many times. The only problem as always with water in in these type of machines is that they require a high temperature (and high energy) to change their fluid's phase, and likewise a large pressure change for the same result.
That is of course why all our fridges, freezers, air conditioners (and not least heat pumps) uses a refrigerant that changes its phase much closer to the ambient temperature!
I think I can recall that a mechanical motor operated by a small temperature difference used propane or possibly butane as its refrigerant, of course there is a huge risk of explosion with such gases, but most refrigerants are usually toxic anyway...
In addition, the very great pressure change which a refrigerant would experience being centrifuged could help the process very much, possibly making very high rpm unnecessary.
Also to revisit the original idea, an insulated tube filled with a low temperature refrigerant could aid the process, but it could potentially also do the opposite. I am concerned that an impregnable wall between the liquid and gas would appear. Even in a pure gas such walls tends to form, which mentioned earlier was called temperature inversion.
Interesting this line of thought :)
Julian
Well, fluids with faster density response to temperatur change are often less densed and less capable of transferring energy.
Many thoughts goes through my mind these days. I have been thinking, if the process in a heat exchanger have a COP of 4-5 (500% energy out compared to input energy), should make it possible to boost the energy harvesting from the air. Think of heat engine which is directly and thermally connected to this process, the engine could have little more than 20% efficiency and be suficcient to run the pump.
The expansion nozzle is pure loss, so what we need to increase the efficiency of the heat exchanger even more, is to place a reversal pump that is run by the pressure made by the main pump. This reversed pump must deliver less volume pr. revolution than the pressure pump in order to maintan the pressure difference between cold and hot sides. With such a reversed pump (expansion pump) if you like) will reduce the input power by 20%, and therfor increase COP to 6 or 7. Then we can talk about an engine that runs on pure air temperature :)
Vidar.
I was thinking about the rotational setup and a simple design for it which could be utilized as proof of concept. I attached such setup below. Basically it's made of brass or copper pipes and a T pipe fitting. The lower parts are insulated while the upper part is open. A contactless IR thermometer could be used to measure the temperature on the upper part, which should be the hot part.
But to be honest for reasonable dimensions (sub 1 meter diameter) you would need some high valued parameters. The rotational speed has to be at least 10000 RPM to see accelerations that are near 10-20 g's.
Hopefully such a setup would be conclusive and show a significant temperature increase if the theory of the concept is sound and perhaps lead to more ideas, designs and concepts to improve it and multiply the difference by stacking.
Edit: I was quite a bit off with the acceleration numbers. 10000 RPM can lead to 10000-20000 g's at a radius of 10-20 cm!.