ThermoElectro Properties of Alumel/Chromel - Chromel/Constantan

( as power/energy thermopile rods, sort of "fuzzy warm fusion", except that the fuel is clean and free )

( by; Brad Guth / IEIS    update: January 16, 2002 )

Update: January 16, 2003  In my latest page on developing the EVA Suit application, a fairly common error seems to have become that most of my critics and even of those not actually trying to be purely negative, is that imposed by their typically limited or perhaps nitch education that's further embellished upon by the media and of those relentless NASA info-commercials that have long been touting their latest idea of what a thermopile is (taking that well established trade name from the original invention/interpretation), as that now being essentially a modest but effective NPNP semiconductor approach, that which obviously needs a thermal differential and, more importantly an internal or possibly a concentrated solar source of heat, that's most often having been somewhat nuclear based as for probes of Mars or further destinations (as our sun is rather exponentially poor at heating much of anything past Mars). The exception being is that of a Venus satellite could be powered by such technology because there's the notable differential between the bright solar illuminated and of the dark non illuminated NPNP thermopile panel sides. Some obvious differences are still to be noted; such semiconductor technology is simply not all that suited for the Venus lower atmospheric temperatures and, of whatever added heat needed in order to obtain or drive any appreciable differential is going to place that sort of technology into melt-down mode long before a single electron ever flows and then, of that typically internal thermonuclear core is going to have to peter out altogether, which is a darn good thing because, otherwise we'll have a thermonuclear runaway. Packing large blocks of Nitrogen cold along for the ride is simply out of the question, unless you've got yourself some way of remote/robotic refueling.


December 05, 2002   I've corrected some resistance or impedance errors, however, I'm still running run into some opposition flak and/or intentional disinformation, this time regarding thermopile power generation as apparently, according to my opposition obviously opposed to absolutely anything Venus, such junctions (often referred to as cold junctions) of essentially "warm fusion" offers absolutely "zero energy density". If these wizards are so freaking smart, it seems odd that they can't manage to convince General Electric, Westinghouse, Honeywell nor Raytheon/TRW that they've been wasting their time on thermopiles for all these decades.


December 02, 2002 (correction)  Thermopile generators (a very old method that's still in use because, it's reliable but also mostly because it's dirt cheap to construct and thereby highly profitable), these are not the same as the NPNP variation which must work uoon a thermal differential.

Essentially this is sort of a form of "cold junction" or "thermal battery", which I like to refer to as "warm fusion" because, at absolute zero (0°K) there is little or no longer any flow of those electrons but, at a good deal of temperature we can obtain a fairly respectable flow, reliable as well, essentially obtaining a flow of electrons from the mere existence of heat (no differentials involved), upon the alloy differentials associated with the assembled junctions of dissimilar junctions.

As far as I can determine, there has been no absolute limits established as to how thick nor as to how thin each of these alloys can be, junctions that can be associated with a significant stack or thermopile, thus perhaps 0.25mm per alloy can afford 100+ such junctions per inch and subsequently 1000+ thermal junctions within a 10" span (a full meter could represent 4000 alloy junctions). These assembled alloys can be relatively tough, fused via implosion and/or friction weld, thus a molecular bond of near absolute purity. Operating such alloys within a purely CO2/N2 environment is yet providing another advantageous consideration, where corrosion or oxidisation is all but eliminated and thermal conductivity is maximized. At 1 mm/alloy, the potential energy density (output) seems to represent a minimum of 500 watts/kg and likely more so if the stack is comprised of thinner alloy layers.

a commercial appliance thermopile power generator, referred to as 750 mV device, might actually be better defined or qualified as delivering as much as 500 mW, as that being an energy source that's delivering at 500 mV under typical impedance load and, I believe 811K (1000F) or of somewhat greater temperature is the norm (the least performing of these commercial thermopiles is a 250 mw energy delivering device). Internally there's all of 1 gram of relatively crude thermal junction surfaces (for one thing; lesser surface/junction area = better or faster response however, on Venus we certainly don't care anything about response), thereby a full kg worth (excluding packaging) of these same thermal junctions can provide 500 watts. Admittedly, this is still fairly pathetic and certainly not very energy efficient, especially if you also had to provide the heat source, however, almost any alternate method of assembly will improve upon this device performance, as the present market need or demand for energy via the thermopile is obviously crude as well as being met at a few penny's cost to the manufacturer and, most of that is for the outer probe package and wires, where aa the display bubble pack along with all the fancy imprinting by which such appliance devices are often found, this is likely more costly then the actual alloy elements (probably receives more actual engineering as well).

These commercial appliance thermopiles are those often driving a fairly low impedance load of 1 ohm or lesser and, at that load the circuit voltage drop is typically 33%, so that we have a total loop impedance of 3 ohms or that of 2 ohms for just those thermo metal alloy junctions (typical circuit application tolerances are obviously not tight, as 66% voltage loss is delivering minimal but within spec for that of powering a typical gas soleniod valve).

December 03, 2002 (correction);  I'm not absolutely certain but, for the same 500 mV load voltage, we're talking of merely 34 (+1) layers of 0.05mm alloy, that's 1.75 mm = 6.7^-6 ohm per array stack of 12.7 mm diameter alloy junctions (3.8^-6 ohm/mm). Folks; at 1.75 mm that's 0.0067 milliohm as compared to the before mentioned 2 ohm thermopile product and, that's nearly 29^4 times lesser impedance, thus within the space of a thin dime, that's a whole lot more electrons capable of flowing and, best of all, the energy to heat that dime is not only squeaky clean but has been absolutely free as well as pure (nearly void of any corrosive O2 as well as any H2O and, thereby zip worth of corrosion). At this low impedance we're also not having to deal with electron leakage and, at 81% gravity, how is a few kg worth of thermopiles going to slow you down (10 kg on Venus weighs 8.1 kg, that's roughly 20 pounds [say 24 lbs once fully packaged], not bad for something that could deliver as much as 5 kw).

I just came across "Thermal Surface Absorber Heads for CW and Long Pulse Lasers", by merely doing a search for "thermopile energy" and, just as I had thought, there's all sorts of energy absorbing heads that convert an external thermal source into electrical energy, all the way up to 500+ MJ. Obviously I'm not the sort of village idiot that you might think, as my initial calculations could be skewed but not intentionally so, not like the sort of ulterior flak that's been coming from my pathetic opponents. I fully realize the inefficiencies of obtaining energy from Alumel/Chromel and/or from almost any other form of purely hot alloy junction, however, when that heat source is absolutely free and continuous, then what's your beef, as even a 1% conversion efficiency is pretty damn good, especially if those thermolpile junctions are of such robust alloys and even more so if there's so little O2 in the thermal environment. There are a number of nuclear powered batteries, some of which offer a 28 year half life but many others are closer to a half year of working performance. Well guess what folks, on Venus that thermal heat source is more like "forever", so where's the problem in that, especially when there's a good number bimetal combinations capable of existing and surviving within the nearly perfect alloy environment of toasty CO2 and, there's absolutely no radiation whatsoever.


November 29, 2002   This is where I received a little further word from God again, this time his messenger was Lord "William Kaukler", as an expert upon thermoelectric properties and subsequent power generation, as such stipulating "zero energy density per unit area of junction given the conditions of your question", where my question was with regard to Alumel/Chromel junctions (a serious stack of them applied at much larger then normal thermalcouple junction area parameters) operating at 650K (I did not specify any specific junction area, but merely requested the formula or coefficient per cross sectional area as for determining the potential of energy density, where of course this was obviously too much to ask from such a pro-NASA wizard).

Exactly where do these Godly types come from, with all of their "can't do" absolutely anything unless it's their idea or been done by someone only they admire or can freely copy from. Just because the environment of Venus is hotter then they their ass tolerate and, as far as their limited intelligence goes, nothing other could have possibly evolved (period!) and, of whatever energy potential, there's never a viable solution for sustaining life, except somehow for that of frozen Mars, even though frozen Mars offers almost no geothermal energy considerations, nearly zip as far as practical PV potential and, absolutely zip regarding it's thermal and pressure differentials of that cold 0.006 bar atmosphere of mostly CO2 (that's damn near lunar), thereby also zip worth of any kinetic value (meaning you could probably stand up in a 500 m/s wind tunnel).

Perhaps according to all of my esteemed critics (mostly pro-NASA types), perhaps I should quickly go about informing General Electric, Westinghouse as well as Raytheon/TRW that their thermopile power generators or energy absorbers and, of all the patents associated with them (all the way back to the original inventors), of alloy thermopiles simply not existing, as just think of all the money I'll be saving everyone from their wasting such foolish endeavors, including all those phony patent rights and royalties that will have to be refunded, as perhaps I could even go back and retroactively disqualify all of the original inventors on several other grounds, thereby nullifying all of their associated patents.



In spite of the opposition; here goes my initial rough idea, of the physical and electrical aspects Of these two nifty Chromel®-Alumel® alloys, as being combined (sort of warm fusion);  as situated on Venus where it's never cold, unless you're above those (solar flare radiation blocking) clouds;

.05 diam = .0019635 area (representative of #16 gage Alumel/Chromel wires @.01933 ohm/inch)
.5" diam = .19635 area (10 X diameter = 100 times area = .0000965 ohm/inch)
That 12.7 mm diameter = 2.24 lb (1 kg)/foot = .0833 kg/in or 3.28 grams/mm
 
180 mm (7.1") = .00137 ohm per array stack of 1800 (12.7 mm diameter) junctions

180 mm X 12.7 mm worth is approximately .590 kg  (1.3 lbs per energy stick/rod or that's roughly 1 Venus pound due to their 81% gravity)

If for some technical assembly reason the combined junctions and alloy resistance (at 650K) were to equate to as much as 0.1 ohm (that's roughly 146 times greater than of the above two alloys combined), then a load of 10 amps would have to equate into a 1 volt drop as well as for adding another handy dandy 10 watts worth of internal heat/energy (if there was some U232 and/or plutonium involved, we might actually exceed warm fusion requirements by soaring into actual runaway fusion).

Another preamble to my loyal critics;  At this point I'm still gathering information, so I could certainly be a little inaccurate at this juncture, however, I'm not the one intentionally misleading nor betting the farm on anything that's other then well intended research progress. If that's not good enough for your standards and ulterior goals, plus since you've already shot off both of your feet, perhaps you should start in on whatever's remaining, like how about blowing off your big head.

If you're still interested (presumably you're not another NASA/NSA/DoD mole);  This further energy prospecting is pertaining to that of a layered stack/array of chromel/Alumel alloys, those comprised into an effective energy rod that's roughly 180 mm by 12.7 mm. Containing 1800 junctions worth @0.05mm/alloy, at the environment of 650K = 27.9v N/L (-1 volt = 26.9 volts at 10 amps), of which this rod of energy appears to be delivering 269 watts.

Now folks, I'm certainly not an expert about thermo-electron flowing junction performance, however, I've worked with type K thermocouples and I know for an absolute fact, as long as the junction environment is maintained at temperature X, the flow of electrons is consistent as well as not impaired by most loads drawing energy from that junction (drawing any load only adds BTUs, it certainly doesn't cool the damn thing off), presumably the greater the cross sectional junction area the greater the energy potential (same as placing many junctions in parallel) thereby, this is not such a physically complex or large item, nor all that fragile, in fact it's downright compact and tough as a rail spike, especially if those two alloys were to be electro deposited and thereby sort of molecular bonded to each other (there are a number of various other ways of accomplishing this feat, such as friction weld and blast fusion), I'm even certain there are a number of alloy alternatives to Alumel/Chromel (like U232 and whatever) as being suitable as to existing and performing quite nicely on Venus.

I tend to think of Alumel/Chromel as sort of cold fusion because, it delivers it's electrons even at room temperature, like sort of out of nowhere and, it keeps delivering as long as those two alloys are contacting each other (with no apparent material degrade). Essentially a sufficient number of these junctions (10,000 for example) and you may never again require batteries, just the ambient temperature and/or a little boost as from your own body heat in order to deliver 7.5+ VDC at a respectable current flow (if this same junction stack were implanted in your butt and thus bio maintained at 36C = 13.5 VDC under load). Even a good deal more performance, I believe 65% more can be derived from type E junction alloys, thus fewer junctions required. Unfortunately for my pocket book or butt, these examples are extremely old and of well established constants, of sort of "been there, done that" like a century ago.

I'm wondering, exactly how many watts does it actually take to cool off a seriously big ass lizard these days?

How about as for my Liberache R-100 thermal jump suit, that's the one I've covered with 1000 or so of those super bright white LEDs (capable of delivering 147 cd/watt); how many additional watts will it take to as to keeping our sorry butts sufficiently cool enough as for our making that run for cover once we badly arrive without having a suitable airship and without a Venus certified pot to piss in?

I'm thinking; if we were to provide a sufficient number of these power rods as energy cells, along with implementing a thermo heat exchanging technology that obviously requires energy, like whatever a few kilowatts might accomplish, why wouldn't this form of energy resource become a viable alternative as to our having to otherwise pack along a rather custom nuclear reactor or worse, as having to depend upon a depletion of something cold and finite.

Seems as though energy is essentially the "cure all" of just about all of what's considered so evil about Venus and, lo and behold, Venus seems to be offering up all sorts of energy, so what's the freaking big deal?

What I'm really saying is; where exactly have our supposedly crack NASA wizards been all these decades?

How could our supposedly smart assed teams have so thoroughly overlooked such a worthy discovery of such great numbers of massive artificial attributes in the first place, then ignored all of these potential energy resources, then as for being so arrogantly incapable and/or incompetent of doing a damn thing after the fact?

Obviously our wizards have been involved in other pressing matters, first off involved in further securing their futures (job security) as heavily based upon the past, all of which takes a great deal of effort and billions of dollars supporting those ulterior motives that must have been all consuming, obviously to the current point of "stalemate", where little if anything relevant as to humanitarian progress is being achieved.

Technology could become the very salvation to our very existence, yet team NASA has been simply too busy cloaking on behalf of NSA/DoD agendas, thus we're in the fix we seem to have brought upon ourselves, as well as upon so many others, simply because they were merely associating with us or being favored because that somehow suited our true agenda of global domination.

OK, so it's no longer working according to NASA's plan A or B and of NSA/DoD's plans that have long since run out of alphabets, as it's the "jig's up" and perhaps it's even a little past due as to "paying the piper". So, why not look into the future of a mutually beneficial planetary exchange and trade of whatever technology, intellectual properties and commerce that should be worth something?

For us taxpayers; this discovery is essentially solid "pay dirt" and, it's certainly about time that we started recovering something from what has otherwise been going into that NASA/NSA/DoD toilet.

As bad off as Earth has become, there's bound to be something those Islamic lizard folk want in exchange, like how about (since our oceans are rising due to our self inflicted global warming) water? I believe those Russian launch boosters can throw 100 tonnes at something, so, how about for starters we throw 100 tonnes of water (better yet could be H2O2) at Venus L2, sit back an see what if anything takes the bait, and if there's still no cigar, then proceed with plan B, which is to further deliver that 100 tonnes of water or H2O2 via shuttle/airship, at least to some elevation just below those cool nighttime clouds, then scoot ourselves back to VL2. Maybe, if we try really hard, we wont piss these folks off like we've done to so many others here on Earth.

If a little luck is on our side, those on Venus will actually want all of our nasty byproducts for their form of recycling, thereby at 100 tonnes a shot (in volume, that's as little $10,000/tonne Russian style), we could be trading and/or dumping nearly everything, that which nobody wants to deal with in "their back yard" and, getting something a whole lot more useful in return (for such a deal, I would even settle for lizard smut).


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