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Author Topic: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?  (Read 95319 times)

TinselKoala

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #30 on: December 18, 2012, 09:45:46 PM »
Sigh.

Note the oscillation of the Ringbom Stirling's free displacer, which is demonstrated without the engine running, and listen to the explanation of how the connecting tube diameter affected the stable oscillation frequency of the engine. Watch it operate with and without a load.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdq7XAyhk7A

Now read about thermoacoustic engines and resonance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoacoustic_heat_engine
http://www.aster-thermoacoustics.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Presentation_Multi-stage-traveling-wave-feedback.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001122750200019X
http://proceedings.aip.org/resource/2/apcpcs/823/1/1109_1?isAuthorized=no

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9aUiojteys

Yes, mechanical resonance is an important feature of these engines; yes, the linear inertia of the moving parts is used just as the rotational inertia of a flywheel is used, to store energy which is interchanged with stored energy in compression/rarefaction of the working fluid.  Just exactly as hanging a weight from a coiled spring exchanges stored energy between GPE and the stretch of the spring: bounce the weight and you will see the system oscillate at its natural resonant frequency. And if a tiny bit of energy is added at just the right time, the amplitude... hence the stored energy in the system... will increase.... but the system will still "want" to oscillate at the same natural resonant frequency. Unless the masses change or the "spring constant" of the compressible working fluid changes.


bugler

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #31 on: December 18, 2012, 10:17:07 PM »

I would like to know, does this idea have any merit ?
Peter Lindeman has written an article about this.


He mentioned two companies working on this idea.
I guess we will never see it (like with the rest of free energy devices).

Tom Booth

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #32 on: December 19, 2012, 12:50:10 AM »
Sigh.

Harray! my hero has arrived! yay!

Quote
Note the oscillation of the Ringbom Stirling's free displacer, which is demonstrated without the engine running, and listen to the explanation of how the connecting tube diameter affected the stable oscillation frequency of the engine. Watch it operate with and without a load.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdq7XAyhk7A

Now read about thermoacoustic engines and resonance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoacoustic_heat_engine
http://www.aster-thermoacoustics.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Presentation_Multi-stage-traveling-wave-feedback.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001122750200019X
http://proceedings.aip.org/resource/2/apcpcs/823/1/1109_1?isAuthorized=no

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9aUiojteys

Yes, mechanical resonance is an important feature of these engines; yes, the linear inertia of the moving parts is used just as the rotational inertia of a flywheel is used, to store energy which is interchanged with stored energy in compression/rarefaction of the working fluid.  Just exactly as hanging a weight from a coiled spring exchanges stored energy between GPE and the stretch of the spring: bounce the weight and you will see the system oscillate at its natural resonant frequency. And if a tiny bit of energy is added at just the right time, the amplitude... hence the stored energy in the system... will increase.... but the system will still "want" to oscillate at the same natural resonant frequency. Unless the masses change or the "spring constant" of the compressible working fluid changes.

Very interesting.

I can see from the above material (most of which I've seen before) several things, and there may be a few additional things that are of some importance which you haven't brought out.

First of all, there is a vast difference between a "free displacer" and a "free piston". Entirely different functions.

Naturally a "free displacer" suspended in a magnetic field or "levitated" on a magnetic spring will bob up and down when you tap on it. The displacer does not touch the walls of the displacer cylinder. It is not a power piston so there is no friction to restrict its movement.

"Mechanical resonance" in a Stirling Engine at say 100 RPM with a piston and crankshaft is vastly different than acoustic resonance in a REAL acoustic engine at 150 Hz with no moving parts.

The last video of an engine that the guy calls a Thermo-acoustic engine is not a thermo-acoustic engine. It is just a big Lamina Flow Stirling, regardless of what the guy thinks it is or calls it. This should be plain to see by comparing the documents you presented relating to actual thermo-acoustic engines with any kind of Stirling Engine.

As far as the connecting tube. It connects the displacer chamber to the power cylinder. He put in a bigger tube which let the air flow more freely, as a result the engine ran faster. That was his own explanation. Just because he used the term "resonant frequency" does not mean the thing is being driven by sound waves or that it is "thermo-acoustic".

As far as it running with and without a load, it runs much faster without a load and barely chugs along with a load. Naturally.

If it was a variable load with a dial you could no doubt make it run at a range of speeds. If the connecting tube had anything to do with the "frequency" at which the engine ran then you would need some kind of adjustable tube to change the "frequency" there.

You then generalize and say "Yes, mechanical resonance is an important feature of these engines;..." without differentiating between the various types of engines presented as if they were all the same, which they most certainly are not. Personally I would not generally consider sound waves as "mechanical", at least not like piston and crankshaft mechanical.

A piston driven by pressure differentials in an engine is not "exactly the same" as a weight suspended by a spring. A piston in a cylinder of an engine does not swing freely back and forth like a pendulum, nor does it bounce up and down on its own accord like a weight on a spring. It is DRIVEN linearly down a cylinder by an expansive force like a cannon ball shot from a cannon in one direction.

A weight on a spring has gravity balanced by the spring tension. A pendulum swings back and forth due to gravity pulling it downward. A piston is driven by the explosive force of an expanding gas on one side. The only thing on the other side, in the engine we have been talking about is atmospheric pressure.

This seems to me something more along the lines of a man pushing a heavy cart up a hill.

The expanding gas pushes the piston "up hill" against atmospheric pressure, which we might equate with gravity. Heat is the energy exerted by the man pushing the cart up the hill.

At some point the man gets exhausted and collapses and the cart goes rolling back down the hill. It will tend to pick up momentum so that it will roll down the hill and want to keep going beyond the resting point where it started at the bottom of the hill.

The man, or his "energy" has in effect vanished from the equation. Just as the heat that pushed the piston down the cylinder against atmospheric pressure suddenly "disappears" The heat/energy having been exhausted. With the man gone the cart rolls back down the hill by gravity, the thing the man was working against. Without the heat expanding the gas in the cylinder, atmospheric pressure pushes the piston back.

If you have more men, then another man can take the first mans place and push the cart up the hill again until the second man's energy gets exhausted and he collapses, then the cart rolls back down the hill again. Continue this enough times and you have what looks like an "oscillation" or "frequency" but it would be a mistake to believe or suppose that the cart was therefore oscillating up and down the hill on its own accord, just as it is a mistake to believe that a piston in a Stirling Engine is somehow moving up and down or back and forth by its own mass or momentum.

Anyway, welcome.

Perhaps you can say how any of the material you presented relates to Tesla's theory, or does it ?

With an engine running on "supplied" heat. Heat that you have to make. You have to in effect pay every man you hire to push your cart up the hill.

With ambient heat you have an inexhaustible army of men. When one gets exhausted there is always another to take his place.

If the "sink" is the top of the hill, notice that the cart never gets there. but if you attached a generator to the carts wheel you could still get power as the cart was pushed up the hill as well as on its return trip back down the hill.

Tom Booth

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #33 on: December 19, 2012, 06:38:28 PM »
Perhaps the observed action of Mr mowerofdoom's engine running with no flyweel might more clearly and accurately be explained by this illustration:

Take our cannon and cannonball.

Imagine that a cannon with a long barrel is tilted up at an angle, having been given too feeble a charge of gunpowder so that when fired, the cannonball is only projected a short distance but never actually leaves the barrel. The ball then rolls back down the barrel reaching the bottom with a "clunk".

If we could quickly replace the first charge with another, just the same as the first the process could be repeated. But if it were possible to devise some mechanism to quickly replace the charges one after the other and time them so that their detonation would coincide with the balls return to the bottom of the tube going off at the precise moment that the ball arrives at the bottom of the tube we might set up an "oscillation" of sorts.

It seems to me however that we would be loosing some of the available energy.

Remember the piston "banging into the orifice" and the jittery motion of the engine towards the source of heat or towards the "charge" similar to the cannonball clunking against the bottom of the barrel. The cannon might also, if it were not so heavy likewise make some backward motion due to the momentum of the cannonball upon its return down the barrel, the stored momentum being transferred to the cannon. If the cannonball were slowed down on its return trip by causing it to do some work for us then it would land much more gently and the power derived could be utilized.

We might imagine the cannonball as a magnet and the barrel of the cannon wrapped with wires in the manner of a linear generator. Then we could increase the charge slightly and get energy in both directions of travel.

Or suppose we could lengthen the barrel and tilt the cannon at a greater angle. We could then increase the charge even more and get more energy back on both legs of the trip. This might be equated with pressurizing the cold box and lowering the temperature if you follow the reasoning.

But the important thing to consider in this context I think is that the energy supplied by the charge never actually leaves the barrel, it is always trapped behind the cannonball. That is, if we assume that the canon and cannonball are machined with such precision that the cannonball makes a perfect air tight seal within the cylinder but is yet free to move.

We are then burdened with no other labor than that of occasionally removing the ash from the bottom of the barrel. In the case of HEAT however, when used as a charge, we are dealing with a form of pure energy which leaves no ash.

If our charges of "gunpowder" are delivered automatically and the charges themselves are inexhaustible in number then it would seem we have set up something of a "perpetual motion machine" that could run almost indefinitely with no further attention given to it.

The set up would however have to be carefully balanced. The various factors involved would have to be regulated with some precision. The length of the barrel, the angle at which the cannon is set, the volume of gunpowder measured out for each charge, the exact trimming of the firing of the charge, the magnetic force of the cannon ball and the number of windings of wire on the barrel for our generator and perhaps most importantly the electrical LOAD on the power output.

If any of these factors go out of balance with one another the system would fail or might even lead to some minor disaster.

To strong a charge and the cannonball is actually discharged from the barrel, too weak and it does not move at all, if the system is set up for maximum power output the charge might be great and the ball projected with great energy only to be slowed down due to the energy extracted from it. If the load were removed, again , the cannonball might leave the barrel. And of course the timming of the charges etc.

All these factors have their corollaries in our (or Tesal's) theoretical ambient heat engine.


 

Tom Booth

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #34 on: December 19, 2012, 09:08:11 PM »
I might add, that if you read Tesla's article previously posted or linked to it is apparent that he did work with some diligence towards building such an engine but I think his efforts were perhaps too ambitious from the start.

That is, it seems he was working on something to power cities.

Many of his inventions were a result of work on this engine, his infamous "earthquake machine", his turbine, "valvular conduit" and so forth were were actually spin offs, or should I say ELEMENTS of this ambient heat engine.

I really don't have a clear picture of just how he intended to put all these elements together into a working engine so at this point I'm not looking to reproduce whatever it was Tesla had in mind but rather go back to the basic principle he outlined and perhaps devise a small "proof of concept" prototype based on that.

If his idea was actually correct and workable than it should be scalable. In this case my idea is to scale it down to as small and simple a construction as possible.

In Teslas description of his concept he says merely:

Quote
Conceive, for the sake of illustration, [a cylindrical] enclosure T, as illustrated in diagram b, such that energy could not be transferred across it except through a channel or path O, and that, by some means or other, in this enclosure a medium were maintained which would have little energy, and that on the outer side of the same there would be the ordinary ambient medium with much energy.  Under these assumptions the energy would flow through the path O, as indicated by the arrow, and might then be converted on its passage into some other form of energy.

This is his theory reduced to the bare essentials without much of any clue provided in regard to how this is to be accomplished other than "by some means or other" which is not particularly helpful.

It is evident however from his description that he was talking about heat and in the above statement he doubtless had some kind of heat engine in mind.

There are many, many, many different possible configurations when it comes to a Heat engine. The "Lamina Flow" Stirling is, it seems to me, the simplest possible mechanical heat engine there is, especially if we can reduce the number of moving parts by eliminating the flywheel.

I would venture to say that if Tesla's idea cannot be applied using the simplest possible configuration, a larger more complicated machine would have no more success. At any rate, it would be but a relatively small investment in time and effort to test the theory by actual experiment using such a small engine of simple construction.

allcanadian

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #35 on: December 20, 2012, 07:37:22 AM »
First we should understand that the people who formulated the laws of thermodynamics had no idea what heat was, they did not understand what it was any more than a monkey understands what a stealth bomber is.
Now let's look at the second law --
Quote

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium -- the state of maximum entropy. Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the second kind are impossible

The Entropy of an isolated system never decreases, this means if we put something in a closed box isolated from everything else then the energy can neither increase or decrease. That sounds reasonable enough and they seem to be simply stating the obvious but a person has to ask -- why in the hell do they insist on putting everything inside a closed box?, or as they call it an isolated system. Nature does not use isolated systems nor closed boxes and the concept is absurd.
 
Next we could ask what is Entropy--
Quote

Entropy is an extensive thermodynamic property that is the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work. Perhaps the most familiar manifestation of entropy is that, following the laws of thermodynamics, entropy of a closed system always increases and in heat transfer situations, heat energy is transferred from higher temperature components to lower temperature components.

Now what is wrong with this statement?, well they are ranting on about closed systems again so we can just ignore that nonsense however they say Entropy is a measure of a systems thermal energy that is unavailable for doing useful work. Useful work?, what if the work is not useful what then? and how could some energy be unavaliable to do this useful work?. If I did not know better I would say these people are confused and maybe they were drunk when they wrote this.
 
In fact heat is not something it is a property of something and saying an object is hot or has heat in it is kind of like saying water is wet. Now I have to wonder why all these scientists a couple hundred years ago started treating a property of something as something in itself?. Should I create a law saying the wetness of the water must flow from the top of the wave to the bottom, well no that is ridiculous.
 
Heat is the magnitude of oscillation of particles due to Electromagnetic Energy and it just so happens that when we cram enough of these particles together we get something we call tangible matter. This is why this supposed "heat" can travel bilions of miles from our Sun through outer-space at near absolute zero and "heat" the other planets. Does anybody find that strange?, that this supposed heat can travel through a medium near absolute zero(-273 C) and still be perfectly conserved.
Well there is no such thing as heat as heat is a property of matter not something in itself and it always starts as EM energy in matter it is then transferred as EM waves and always ends in matter as EM energy.
 
So one has to ask why all this nonsense about thermodynamics with all it's absurd terminology referring the properties of something as something in itself and unintelligible laws when we could simply use the laws of electrodynamics which explains everything perfectly well in an intelligent manner, no closed boxes required. You see the issue here is that a couple hundred years ago a bunch of old farts who really had no idea what they were dealing with made up some laws to explain things so they made more sense. They though heat was a fluid -- they were wrong, they thought it flowed from place to place like a fluid--they were wrong, they thought it was something in itself--they were wrong.
 
It is no wonder nobody can really understand anything because it makes no sense in this day and age when we should know better. Should we teach our children the same old archaic BS people were teaching their children 100 years ago?. This is not progress, it is not a sign of intelligence and is the reason almost no real progress has been made in this field of technology in the last 80 years. If you want to know what they forgot to mention in their thermodynamics textbooks research electrostatic cooling, as well nantenna technology can convert EM energy in the infrared wavelengths (heat) directly into electrical energy -- no silly heat engines nor closed boxes required.
 
AC
 
 

allcanadian

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #36 on: December 20, 2012, 09:22:38 AM »
Hello Tom
 
Quote
Conceive, for the sake of illustration, [a cylindrical] enclosure T, as illustrated in diagram b, such that energy could not be transferred across it except through a channel or path O, and that, by some means or other, in this enclosure a medium were maintained which would have little energy, and that on the outer side of the same there would be the ordinary ambient medium with much energy.  Under these assumptions the energy would flow through the path O, as indicated by the arrow, and might then be converted on its passage into some other form of energy.
 
 

I read this lecture many years ago and in the surrounding paragraphs Tesla gives one example which I believe he intended to be taken literally. We have a vessel at the bottom of a lake with a pipe extending upwards from the vessel to the atmosphere above the surface of the lake. There is a hole in the vessel and as Tesla states we cannot win because the energy gained by the water flowing in can never be more than the energy required to pump the same water out. This is the same reasoning behind the laws of thermodynamics and they appear to hold because they are simplistic rules created by simple minds, Tesla was not one of them. 
 
Now fully consider this riddle, how can you use less energy pumping the water out of the vessel than you gained by letting it flow in?. Tesla gave us the answer in this lecture and it is simple -- you cannot pump the water out that is absurd, why in the hell would anyone in their right mind try to pump the water out?. Tesla said the medium must undergo a transformation, the medium cannot leave in the same state it came in and Tesla said the water should be transformed into Hydrogen and Oxygen gas. If we consider this suggestion then we have a vessel at the bottom of the lake vented to atmosphere, the inside of the vessel is at atmospheric pressure and water flows into the vessel through a turbine generator. The water in the vessel is then transformed into Hydrogen and Oxygen gas by an electrolyser which is powered by the turbine generator. The Hydrogen and Oxygen gas then travel up the pipe to atmospheric conditions above the surface of the lake where they are burned to produce even more electrical energy and the exhaust is water.   
 
I imagine some are thinking --can that work?, surely there must be some law somewhere which states this cannot work. About 15 years ago when I read this lecture I did the math using conservative parameters and of course it does work just as Tesla implied, I imagine he did the math in his head while I used a computer. The answer is simple and obvious, on one side of the turbine is water under pressure and on the other side gasses(O2, H2) at near atmospheric pressure and if the turbine generator cannot disassociate all the water then we simply find a deeper lake which will generate more power because the water pressure increases with depth on the water side. Now if the turbine generator can supply enough power to the electrolyser to disassociate all water then what of all that H2 and O2 gas at the top of the pipe at the surface?.   
 
At this point many might be scatching their heads and asking themselves where did the energy come from?. It would seem obvious however I will default to the same BS excuse most experts tend to use.  Occam's Razor --"among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected" -- Do the math   AC

allcanadian

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #37 on: December 20, 2012, 09:53:27 AM »
@Gianna
Quote
The 'closed boxes' you seem to abhor are simply a tool. As engineers we know it is impossible to physically create a perfectly adiabatic process as represented by a closed box.  However, we do know for sure that the results of any measuring any physical process will, in the limit, approach the theoretical values imposed by thermodynamic theory.

Yes as an engineer I understand this perfectly well and if everyone treated this "tool" as a tool then I would have no issue with it. However most do not treat it as a tool do they?, they imply you cannot get more energy out than you put into a system and use this notion in a universal context. They use the conservation of energy and mass in a closed system to justify the notion that we cannot extract energy from an open system. Why is it 99% of the content on the internet does this, could you explain this for me?.
 
Quote

It is akin to the situation with gravity. Physicists may not know exactly what it IS, but that doesn't stop them using Newton or Einstein to calculate the effects it has.

I would agree a good physicist would say they do not know what Gravity is just as they do not know what a Magnetic or Electric field is fundamentally. Not what it does but what it actually is in reality, now if we do not know what something is fundamentally do you think we should go around telling everyone that we know exactly what must happen in every case?, how would a person know what would happen in every single case everywhere in the universe for all time?, why they would have to be some kind of all knowing all seeing god wouldn't they?.
You see when a person states "you cannot extract energy from a magnetic field"  I would think knowing what a magnetic field is might be a deciding factor otherwise were just be speculating. As you may know speculation is not a fact, they are not the same thing, which is why it should be treated as such.
 
AC

Tom Booth

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #38 on: December 20, 2012, 06:22:34 PM »
...If you want to know what they forgot to mention in their thermodynamics textbooks research electrostatic cooling, as well nantenna technology ...

AC

Thanks, I haven't come across these before. When I Googled nantenna Google insisted it was a miss-spelling and showed results for antenna.

Ah! Nano-antenna. I did come across some stuff about nanotechnology being used to improve the efficiency of solar panels -possibly a year or two ago. but it may be that there was some other principle involved. At any rate, I don't think they were calling it "nantenna" at the time.


picowatt

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #39 on: December 20, 2012, 09:11:29 PM »
Thanks, I haven't come across these before. When I Googled nantenna Google insisted it was a miss-spelling and showed results for antenna.

Ah! Nano-antenna. I did come across some stuff about nanotechnology being used to improve the efficiency of solar panels -possibly a year or two ago. but it may be that there was some other principle involved. At any rate, I don't think they were calling it "nantenna" at the time.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantenna

allcanadian

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #40 on: December 20, 2012, 09:55:27 PM »
Tom
Imagine what might happen if one wire was positioned exactly on the crest of an EM wave while another wire was spaced so that it fell exactly on the trough of an EM wave. The spacing of the wire must be at the wavelength crest and trough (1/2 wavelength) and the wire diameter much smaller than than a 1\4 wavelength. In which case any EM wavelength including heat and light can be converted directly to electrical energy. This is the promise of nano-technology in that we do not have to accept things the way they are and we can engineer materials, Meta-materials, to do things no other materials can.

Some materials bend Em waves around an object rendering it invisible to those EM waves, some materials can conduct then not and some new materials are attracted or repelled by magnetic fields then these properties can be switched off. Can you imagine a material which interacts with a magnetic field in one instance then is switched off in the next so that it has no magnetic properties. Engineered materials with properties which are variable by design, intelligent design.
Ferrofluid is a good example and is fluid outside the presence of a magnetic field yet approaches solidity within it.

It's kind of funny that most experts 50 or so years ago would have stated categorically that this was impossible and in the realm of fantasy and crackpots but here it is. This is the problem with many experts, they try to define reality within the confines of their own understanding so much that they start to honestly believe what they think must be the only reality there is which is a form of delusion. As such I like to keep an open mind or objectivity about these things because the only real facts we have suggest we do not know everything, in fact they suggest we have not even begun to scratch the surface of what is possible.

Regards
AC


Tom Booth

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #41 on: December 20, 2012, 09:57:24 PM »
Hello Tom

I read this lecture many years ago and in the surrounding paragraphs Tesla gives one example which I believe he intended to be taken literally. We have a vessel at the bottom of a lake...

Tesla said the medium must undergo a transformation, the medium cannot leave in the same state it came in and Tesla said the water should be transformed into Hydrogen and Oxygen gas. ...

About 15 years ago when I read this lecture I did the math using conservative parameters and of course it does work just as Tesla implied,... ...and if the turbine generator cannot disassociate all the water then we simply find a deeper lake which will generate more power....  ...Now if the turbine generator can supply enough power to the electrolyser to disassociate all water then what of all that H2 and O2 gas at the top of the pipe at the surface?.   
 
...Do the math   AC

Thanks, this gives me a different perspective. When reading Tesla's statement in this regard, I considered it as having been made for illustrative purposes only.

Water in powering a turbine does not of itself automatically dissociate into Hydrogen and Oxygen. The power generated would have to be used for that purpose. Assuming however that this is possible, it seems to me that the lake would have to be extremely deep and the water pressure extremely high so that the flow of water entering the system could be kept to a minimum. The electrolyzer would also have to be very efficient so as to be able to convert all of the water as fast as it flowed in. It seems to, that if all this could be accomplished, the water stream powering the turbine would have such force that the turbine would have to be of some special construction to be able to withstand such high pressures. In the end, very little energy would be gained, as practically, if not all the energy would be used up in the electrolysis, however there is the HHO which, it seems, might turn all this to some advantage.

I still don't think that Tesla was putting this idea forward as anything more that an illustration. The major drawback of the idea, from my own perspective is I don't have a deep lake in my back yard, and if I did, I certainly wouldn't have the means to build an underwater bunker at the bottom of it.

I think Tesla's point in using the illustration was that unlike water which is not automatically decomposed into its gaseous elements at the point of energy conversion heat as a form of energy, (rather than a fluid) IS converted or can be converted obviating any necessity that it be removed.

Heat is removed in the process of conversion itself AS-IF, the water, in giving up its energy to the turbine automatically decomposed into its elements in the process.

Another problem with the tank at the bottom of the lake idea, I think, is that if there is not enough energy to electrolyze the water at a shallow depth and so you sink the tank deeper, so as to resolve the problem, not only is the water pressure going to increase but the atmospheric pressure working against the operation will increase proportionately, would there actually be any gain by taking the whole operation deeper ?

At any rate, of the two proposals, The tank in the lake vs the conversion of ambient heat, I would say that the conversion of ambient heat holds out more promise and should be easier to implement if it is in fact possible.

I also think that although Carnot's concept of heat was wrong, his basic conclusions were nevertheless pretty much correct. For example he gives us this insight:

Quote
Now if there were any method of using heat preferable to that which we have employed, that is to say, if it were possible that the caloric should produce, by any process whatever, a larger quantity of motive power than that produced in our first series of operations, it would be possible, by diverting a portion of this power, to effect a return of caloric, by the method just indicated, from the body B to the body A that is, from the refrigerator to the source and thus to re-establish things in their original state, and to put them in position to recommence an operation exactly similar to the first one, and so on : there would thus result not only the perpetual motion, but an indefinite creation of motive power without consumption of caloric or of any other agent whatsoever. Such a creation is entirely contrary to the ideas now accepted, to the laws of mechanics and of sound physics ; it is inadmissible.*

* The objection will perhaps here be made that perpetual motion has only been demonstrated to be impossible in the case of mechanical actions, and that it may not be so when we employ the agency of heat or of electricity; but can we conceive of the phenomena of heat and of electricity as due to any other cause than some motion of bodies, and, as such. should they not be subject to the general laws of mechanics? Besides do we not know a posteriori that all the attempts made to produce perpetual motion by any means whatever have been fruitless ; that no truly perpetual motion has ever been produced, meaning by that, a motion which continues indefinitely without change in the body used as an agent ?

We may hence conclude that the maximum motive power resulting from the use of steam is also the maximum motive power which can be obtained by any other means.

It seems he was groping towards the Kinetic theory even at this time (Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat - 1824)

Which theory he and others soon afterward adopted.

In other words, even though there was no transfer of a fluid "caloric", if "caloric" be replaced by "kinetic energy" we arrive at much the same result. At least most of the time. As far as Heat Engines are concerned.

For example, what is the difference if we transpose the two phrases in this paragraph:

"if it were possible that the caloric (Kinetic energy) should produce, by any process whatever, a larger quantity of motive power than that produced in our first series of operations, it would be possible, by diverting a portion of this power, to effect a return of caloric (kinetic energy), by the method just indicated, from the body B to the body A that is, from the refrigerator to the source and thus to re-establish things in their original state, and to put them in position to recommence an operation exactly similar to the first one, and so on : there would thus result not only the perpetual motion, but an indefinite creation of motive power without consumption of caloric (kinetic energy) or of any other agent whatsoever."

What happens to the argument ?

We can read "motive power" as "Kinetic energy" as well, ignoring the ambiguities this creates; the basic premise remains: You can't get more energy out than you put in.

But, if we read these 1800's sources carefully, when they speak of the operation of heat engines, they can't seem to really see beyond the Steam Engine. That is, a HEAT engine if we define heat in relative terms as a concentration of Kinetic Energy ABOVE the Ambient which is in general equilibrium.

That is, the assumption is that you have to MAKE the heat. Create a disturbance or imbalance in the "caloric". Build a fire.

If you then extract energy from the heat how ever you look at it, bringing it down to ambient, if you want to repeat the process IN A CLOSED LOOP. you will have to heat the "working fluid" up again. Make the water condensed out back into steam to recreate or maintain the imbalance. How else can you get energy out of heat than with heat ? To close the loop you'll have to put the kinetic energy back where it started. Right ?

Yes, Right. They were all right, Carnot, Clausius, Lord Kelvin, they all knew exactly what they were talking about. Logically, if you have to make heat to get it above ambient to use it ,and then you do use it and you end up with cold, you will have to heat the cold up again to get the heat to use it again. There is no way you can win.

Tesla scratched his head a little bit and said what if instead of using heat (above ambient), you make a "cold hole". Then you can use the heat of the ambient as it flows in naturally and you will never run out so you don't have to put it back. It is no longer a closed loop. It is a linear system.

Sunshine Hits the earth >>>> Hot Ambient > Heat > Heat converted to Pressure in a Heat engine > Motive Force (work) > Electricity Generation > Eventual heat dissipation into Outer Space >>>>>

It becomes a unidirectional flow. A temporary interruption of the flow of energy emanating from the sun to be utilized before it continues on its way to other planets. Not a closed loop, not a constant uphill battle to put the energy back up at a higher level to repeat a cycle. It isn't a cycle, its a flow like a river that can be intercepted so as to extract some energy.

Maybe.

At least it seems like there is some remote possibility it could work. Not sure how much energy you could produce that way but it certainly seems worth a try.

As far as I can see the idea was dismissed "posteriori". It's never been done before, therefore it can't be done, case closed.

So nobody has ever even bothered to try. At least I can find no history of anyone having ever put a heat engine in an ice box.

Until someone actually does the experiment, I wouldn't write it off as an impossibility.

When it was found, through actual experiment that Heat and Work were equivalent and interchangeable Lord Kelvin put forth the extraordinary argument:

Quote
"It is impossible, by means of inanimate material agency, to derive mechanical effect from any portion of matter by cooling it below the temperature of the coldest of the surrounding objects*

(In the footnote)

* If this axiom be denied for all temperatures it would have to be
admitted that a self-acting machine might be set to work and produce mechanical effect by cooling the sea or earth. with no limit but the total loss 
of heat from the earth and sea. or, in reality, from the whole material
world.


There continues the tacit belief that Heat is a material substance that if not in fact permanent as the "coloric" might instead be "consumed" and put entirely out of existence.

Tesla recognized the fallacy. Heat is energy and can be converted.

It is neither permanent, nor can it be "consumed" or entirely put out of existence.

There is no danger that Tesla's engine would cool down the planet or the entire universe. Heat turned into electricity and used would sooner or later re-emerge as heat. In incandescent lamps, cook stoves, space heaters, friction of moving parts etc. etc.

It seems there was an element of "fear of the unknown" at work at the time.

In another passage he appears to admit the possibility of a "self-acting engine" but then denies it:

"...Now it is obvious that A might be made to spend part of its work in working B backwards, and the whole might be made self-acting... We should thus have a self-acting machine, capable of drawing heat constantly from a body surrounded by others at a higher temperature, and converting it into mechanical effect. But this is contrary to the axiom."

I would say that an axiom is not an experimental proof.

To simply state "an airplane can't fly if it is heavier than air" does not make it true, but such a statement will nevertheless stand and be assumed to be true until someone with some temerity comes along and actually puts the effort into building such a machine and does the experiment to see if it is true or not.


allcanadian

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #42 on: December 21, 2012, 01:19:47 AM »
Tom
Quote

Water in powering a turbine does not of itself automatically dissociate into Hydrogen and Oxygen. The power generated would have to be used for that purpose. Assuming however that this is possible, it seems to me that the lake would have to be extremely deep and the water pressure extremely high so that the flow of water entering the system could be kept to a minimum. The electrolyzer would also have to be very efficient so as to be able to convert all of the water as fast as it flowed in. It seems to, that if all this could be accomplished, the water stream powering the turbine would have such force that the turbine would have to be of some special construction to be able to withstand such high pressures. In the end, very little energy would be gained, as practically, if not all the energy would be used up in the electrolysis, however there is the HHO which, it seems, might turn all this to some advantage.

If memory serves me correct the tank in a lake scenario balanced at 30,000 feet of depth which make it completely impractical however that has no bearing on whether it works or not. I always found it comical that Kelvin and others said a self-acting engine was impossible then when Tesla gave them a simple example of how they were wrong they changed the context by saying it was impractical, as if the truth was a matter of practicality, priceless.
 
Now some might strongly disagree with my being overly critical of the scientific community so I will introduce a few relevant facts--
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2685008/
A pooled weighted average of 1.97% (N = 7, 95%CI: 0.86–4.45) of scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once –a serious form of misconduct by any standard– and up to 33.7% admitted other questionable research practices. In surveys asking about the behaviour of colleagues, admission rates were 14.12% (N = 12, 95% CI: 9.91–19.72) for falsification, and up to 72% for other questionable research practices.

http://www.discovercreation.org/newsletters/ScientistsFalsifyResearchResults.htm
Scientists Invent Results:Times Online (June 4, 2009) headline reports that “One in seven scientists say colleagues fake data.” That figure applies to serious breaches of “acceptable conduct by inventing results.” The article went on to say that “46 per cent say that they have observed fellow scientists engage in ‘questionable practices’, such as presenting data selectively or changing the conclusions of a study in response to pressure from a funding source.”

http://phys.org/news162795064.html
On average, across the surveys, around 2% of scientists admitted they had "fabricated" (made up), "falsified" or "altered" data to "improve the outcome" at least once, and up to 34% admitted to other questionable research practices including "failing to present data that contradict one's own previous research" and "dropping observations or data points from analyses based on a gut feeling that they were inaccurate."

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/why_scientists_lie_and_what_to.html
 
 
Quote

The article went on to say that “46 per cent say that they have observed fellow scientists engage in ‘questionable practices’, such as presenting data selectively or changing the conclusions of a study in response to pressure from a funding source.”

Imagine that, almost one half of the scientists changed their conclusions or presented data selectively because of peer pressure as well as dismissing data which contradicted their previous work and 72% engaged in other questionable research practices-- Oh dear we have problems in wonderland.
 
I find this comical because I work with professionals on a daily basis and can tell you as a fact they are no better than anyone you will meet on any street corner. They lie and cheat, some are alcoholics while others use drugs, they cheat on their wives and fabricate shit to cover up their mistakes. So why do some people put scientists and other professionals up on a pedestal as if they were some sort of god and science their religion?, it is absurd. I can guarantee you that if you knew these people you would think very differently of them and we have to take the good with the bad. Which is why we must always question their motives as well as their data in every case and this is what real science is all about -- the real facts.
As well there is a great deal of evidence which suggests that at no other time in history has science been so corrupt however it is not common knowledge. Corporate agendas dominate science and peer pressure to fall in line with the general opinion is rampant.
AC

Tom Booth

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #43 on: December 21, 2012, 02:14:05 AM »
Of course this would work. One expression of it is a solar powered stirling engine.

Well...

That would be: Sunshine Hits solar powered stirling >> Heat > Heat converted to Pressure in a Heat engine > Motive Force (work) > Electricity Generation > Eventual heat dissipation into Outer Space >>>>>

Leaving out the intermediary of  > Hot Ambient > between Sun and heat engine.

Possibly a minor difference. Possibly not.

Using Solar Energy stored in the heat of the atmosphere would mean you could run the engine day AND NIGHT.

So why wouldn't it work ?

As far as I can figure, It won't work because in 1824 a guy named Carnot suggested rather alarmingly that such a thing was impossible and people believed him.

To be fair to Carnot though, when he said "perpetual motion" was impossible, his definition of perpetual motion should, perhaps, be kept in mind. I'm not quite sure if it would really apply. He wrote:

Quote
The general and philosophical acceptation of the words perpetual motion
should comprehend not only a motion capable of indefinite continuance
after it has been started, but also the action of an apparatus, of a set of
bodies, capable of creating motive power in an unlimited quantity, and of
setting in motion successively all the bodies of nature, if they are originally
at rest, and of destroying in them the principle of inertia, and finally capa-
ble of furnishing in itself all the forces necessary to move the entire uni-
verse, to prolong and to constantly accelerate its motion.

This seems something quite far and beyond what most people today might consider "perpetual motion". Something like this little machine perhaps:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq3K6Ma0wIU

I can hardly imagine this little heat engine... "creating motive power in an unlimited quantity" etc.

bugler

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Re: Tesla's Ambient Heat Engine Theory - Right or Wrong ?
« Reply #44 on: December 21, 2012, 08:39:28 AM »
...
All Canadian, did you write the Kornelson transformer pdf?


If so could you tell us something about it?


(I pm you in energetic forum but  you don't answer).