it´s possible Rodal. I already forwarded your previous questions to the Talk Polywell forums, but I also asked Dr Paul March if he could answer your questions directly here, so I can stop playing messenger boy haha
@Paul March,What are the units of the Electric Field (shown ranging from 0 to 3000) in Fig. 14 ?titled "Cross section of test article (left) and close up of fields in RF drive pipe (right)", from the <<Computer modeling of the electric field within the pillbox and beam pipe (using COMSOL Multiphysics® software>> on page 10 of your paper (with Brady, White, et.al.)"Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF Test Device Measured on a Low-Thrust Torsion Pendulum" July 28-30, 2014, Cleveland, OH, 50th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference
..the 24.00" long by 1.50" square aluminum pendulum arm...
Quote from: Star-Drive on 09/10/2014 11:32 pm..the 24.00" long by 1.50" square aluminum pendulum arm...Thanks Paul for all this information. I am thinking of another explanation, and I have these further questions:1) Several places in your report discuss the Magnetic Damper System:<<Figure 3. Electrostatic Fins Calibration System and Magnetic Damper>> (p.4)<<Whenever a force is induced upon the pendulum arm, the resultant harmonic motion must be damped. This is accomplished via the use of a magnetic dampening system (MDS) at the back of the test rig. Three Neodymium (NdFeB Grade N42) block magnets interact with the pendulum’s aluminum angle to dampen oscillatory motion.>> (p.4)<<This current causes the power cable to generate a magnetic field that interacts with the torsion pendulum magnetic damper system>> (p.14)<<Figure 20. Null Test on Torsion Pendulum – average null force is 9.6 micronewtons due to 5.6A DC current in power cable (routes power from liquid metal contacts to RF amplifier; interacts with magnetic damper system)>> (p.16)QUESTIONS: A) Was the magnetic damper on at all times in the shown traces (for the calibration pulses as well as for the thrust pulses both to the left and right ? B) What is the nature of the interaction << ....with magnetic damper system)>> discussed in Fig. 20 (p.16) ?C) Are you able to apply different levels of magnetic damping (and if so have you tested them, with what results) or all you are able to do is to have this level of magnetic damping either on or off ?D) There is a range of thrust values that were measured for the same nominal conditions. Were changes in the total supported mass and location of this mass made, and if so do they have any correlation with the range of thrust measured?2) Do you know the cross-section of the 1.50" square aluminum pendulum arm ? (Is it solid, or if it is a channel, what are its internal dimensions?)Jose' Rodal
3. Is the torsion pendulum the only way to test a device of this sort on Earth?
feel like I'm watching a dumbshow.So… anyone … and I mean anyone at all … do you think that there would be a electromechanical interaction of a big honking antenna inside a big conductive metal container? Ya think? No? Why not!?I know this is somewhat the "wrong analogy" but consider, just for a second: you have a magnet that you've attached to a string. you want to measure its torsion. You place it in a copper vacuum chamber a diameter or two larger than the magnet. You start it swinging. What's the first thing that happens?The magnet induces substantial eddy currents in the surrounding copper enclosure. This in turn generate counteracting magnetic fields. These in turn rapidly quench the oscillation of the magnet. There's real force there. REAL. Indeed, this arrangement (inverted) is used to quench the oscillations of a beam-balance's beam. Force, without stiction.What I see is a nice big copper horn, inside a nice big metal cylinder (the vacuum cylinder). It is supposedly a high Q device, so that the microwave field will be approximately Q • P watts in energy density. Since those watts have to "go somewhere", guess what … they fill the cylinder, which has the geometry of a particularly nice Faraday shield. The chamber is not anechoic, so, they just bounce around like mad, making nodes and antinodes.Now you think those nodes and antinodes aren't going to interact mechanically with all that metal stuff which is the apparatus?I bet when the thing is lofted (at GREAT NASA expense) to space, it'll fail to deliver the micronewtons that it supposedly delivers. Or, to put it differently, it'll be one of the greatest days of experimental physics if it does develop the nanonewtons, when free-floating in space.And it will be dâmned easy to measure, too. Send it off at a few meters per second "away" before turning on power. Get a good fix on its ultra-precise transmitter (laser). Turn on power. Watch it accelerate away by observing the doppler shift in the laser (sensitive to micrometers per second per second). Turn it off. Watch the change. Turn it on, watch the change. Leave it on until the power supply quits. Measure the ΔV again. It should mathematically prove, or disprove the effect.
And PS: Whenever I see in an article the stretch of imagination being used to build missions to Deimos in 50 days, I just want to puke. Its like … I need to write a book … “Seriously Bogus Science” or something.The science which is serious enough to with straight-face, entertain all these creative things, without being critical enough of the experimental "conditions" to detect the systematic error of reasoning contained therein. The kind of science which is serious enough to pander Mills' endless succession of tripe-papers building on prior tripe-papers, purporting to have come up with a form of hydrogen in a degenerate state, that if it could exist at all would be the most common form of the stuff, and the whole Universe would have collapsed, before it was even the size of a watermelon. Oh, darn.It is as if simply talking, and talking, and talking some more about “Q-thrusters” is somehow making them plausible, and is arguing away the systematic errors.Folks, it is not. You don't measure micro-earthquakes during a major one. In electrical engineering as well as quantitative statistics of measurements, its called "signal to noise ratio" and "systemic errors".
To buy a $61,000,000 per lob launch-window with SpaceX, and to lob a nice space-worthy version of the device out there, to see how it works. $61,000,000 may sound like a lot to us groundhogs, but in space sciences, this is almost a rounding error. Maybe 3 rounding errors.Furthermore, the expense is so minor, that one might reasonably get the trip "for free" from SpaceX themselves, as they clearly need to have "live fire" tests of their Falcon Heavy rocket, upcoming.Let's say the testbed costs about a million to make competently. With 2 parts, with nice lasers, with big batteries, and all that. The thing on the test-bed didn't look like it would have cost more than $25,000 to make. I mean, under 100 watt transmitting tubes, at low gigahertz frequencies, and a bunch of commonplace copper to hold it all together. So, the test thing will be cheap 'n' dirty.IF the Falcon Heavy launch is successful, then hey … the science cost $1,000,000. If it fails, then build another one at 10% the price (now that the kinks are worked out), and try again. SpaceX won't be put out, they can tolerate the extra (good for them) mass of a the test-bed.If they want to get really edgy, then incorporate a bunch of micro-satellite projects from school-kids across the land. You know, growing beans in space, and whether milk will make graham crackers turn to mush in zero G.LOL
If the measured thrust pulse were due to displacement of a mass m relative to the fixation point of the device on the arm, a constant thrust (during the pulse) implies a constant acceleration of this mass (again, relative to the mobile arm) a=F/m, and an integrated displacement at the end of the pulse x = 1/2at˛ = 1/2 F/m t˛ = 0.064/m (approx. with F=80µN and t=40s, and mass m given in kg). After this phase at constant acceleration, the displacement of mass would have to continue at constant velocity for some more time to mimic a sharp fall in thrust but not an opposite thrust pulse (has would be the case if displacing mass suddenly stopped from its integrated vt velocity). So 0.064/m is a minimum displacement, and it's 6.4 cm assuming something 1kg is moving, or 6.4mm for 10kg. Even if a thermally expanding part of the device were driving a more massive part (not needing heating the whole mass to move it), the required displacement seems much too huge for a thermal expansion, given the scales and max temperatures overall.Nice to have some first hand feedback on this thread.Maybe I missed that but anyone inquired or commented on the apparently systematic slope changes (downward) after the relatively clean square thrust periods ? Is there a higher period (>200s) harmonic mode in the system that gives those overall slopes on the order of 1µN/s, or is this just long period "random drifts" due to sensitivity of system ? The charts show the signals measured relative to this slowly drifting baseline (drawn as dotted yellow curve, like piecewise linear best fits). The statistically small sample makes hypothesis risky, but visually there appear a systematic downward change of slope after thruster's pulses, and (also not quite clearly) no slope changes after the (arguably smaller magnitude) 30 µN calibration periods. What is the relevance or irrelevance of this drifting baseline ?