Podkletnov, the machine

[PLAYSWITHMACHINES]

So what about the machine itself?
There have been several different types built, first the 'coated sphere' experiment;

2.1 General description of the installation

The initial variant of the experimental set-up was based on a high-voltage generator placed in a closed cylinder chamber with a controlled gas atmosphere, as shown in Fig. 1. Two metal spheres inside the chamber were supported by hollow ceramic insulators and had electrical connections that allowed to organize a discharge between them, with voltage up to 500 kV . One of the spheres had a thin superconducting coating of Y Ba2Cu3O7-y obtained by plasma spraying using a "Plasmatech 3000S" installation. This sphere could be charged to high voltage using a high voltage generator similar to that of Van de Graaf.

The second sphere could be moved along the axis of the chamber, the distance between the spheres varying from 250 to 2000 mm. Spheres with a diameter from 250 to 500 mm were used in the experiment. It was possible to fill the chamber with helium vapours or to create rough vacuum using a rotary pump. The walls of the chamber were made of nonconducting plastic composite material, with a big quartz glass window along one of the walls which allowed to observe the shape, the trajectory and the colour of the discharge.

In order to protect the environment and the computer network from static electricity and
powerful electromagnetic pulses, the chamber could be shielded by a Faraday cage with cell dimensions of 2.0 × 2.0 cm and a rubber-plastic film material absorbing ultra high frequency (UHF) radiation.

The superconducting sphere was kept at a temperature between 40 and 80 K, which was achieved by injecting liquid helium or liquid nitrogen through a quartz tube inside the volume of the superconducting sphere before the charging began. The inside volume of the chamber was evacuated or filled with helium in order to avoid the condensation of moisture and different gases on the superconducting sphere. The temperature of the superconductor was measured using a standard thermocouple for low temperature measurements and was typically around 55-60 K. Given the good heat conductivity of the superconductor, we estimated that the temperature difference in the ceramic did not exceed 1 K.

An improved variant of the discharge chamber is shown in Fig. 2. The charged
electrode was changed to a toroid attached to a metal plate and a superconducting emitter which had the shape of a disk with round corners. The non-superconducting part of the emitter was fixed to a metal plate using metal Indium orWood'smetal, the superconducting part of the emitter faced the opposite electrode. The second electrode was a metal toroid of smaller diameter, connected to a target. The target was a metal disk with the diameter of 100 mm and the height of 15 mm. The target was attached to a metal plate welded to the toroid.

This improved design of the generator was able to create a well-formed discharge between the emitter and the target, still the trajectory was not always repeatable and it was difficult to maintain constant values of current and voltage. The chamber was also not rigid enough to obtain high vacuum and some moisture was condensing on the emitter, damaging the superconducting material and affecting the discharge characteristics. The large distance between the electrodes also caused considerable dissipation of energy during discharge. In order to improve the efficiency of operation, the measuring system and the reproducibility of the discharge, an entirely new design of the vacuum chamber and the charging system was created.

The final variant of the discharge chamber is presented in Fig. 3 (the apparatus is
shown in a vertical position though actually it is situated parallel to the floor). This set-up allowed to reduce the dimensions of the installation and to increase the efficiency of the process. The chamber has the form of a cylinder with the approximate diameter of 1 m and the length of 1.5 m and is made of quartz glass. The chamber has two connecting
sections with flanges which allow to change the emitter easily. The design permits to
create high vacuum inside or to fill the whole volume with any gas that is required. The
distance of the discharge has been decreased considerably giving the possibility to reduce energy dissipation and to organize the discharge in a better way. The distance between the electrodes can vary from 0.15 to 0.40 m in order to find the optimum length for each type of the emitter.


The discharge can be concentrated on a smaller target area using a big solenoid with
the diameter of 1.05 m that is wound around the chamber using copper wire with the
diameter of 0.5 cm. The magnetic flux density is 0.9 T. A small solenoid is also wound
around the emitter (Fig. 3) so that the magnetic field can be frozen inside a superconductor
when it is cooled down below the critical temperature.

The refrigeration system for the superconducting emitter provides a sufficient amount
of liquid nitrogen or liquid helium for the long-term operation and the losses of gas due to evaporation are minimized because of the high vacuum inside the chamber and thus of a better thermal insulation.

A photodiode is placed on the transparent wall of the chamber and is connected to
an oscilloscope, in order to provide information on the light parameters of the discharge. Given the low pressure and the high applied voltage, emission of X-rays from the metallic electrode cannot be excluded, but the short duration of the discharge makes their detection difficult. Use of a Geiger counter and of X-rays sensitive photographic plates did not yield any clear signature of X-rays.

More to come on this, but here's the PDF of that paper:

http://www.mediafire.com/?5jr5wxjjicgxmda

Source; http://arxiv.org/ps/physics/0108005v2
Watch this space.....
Sorry, problem with the pics, but it's all in the links i posted