Keith Dysart wrote:
Steven Best's article does have an equation of similar form:

PFTOTAL = P1 + P2 + 2 * sqrt(P1) * sqrt(P2) * cosè

Starting with superposition of two voltages, he derived an
equation based on powers for computing the total power.

The derivation proves the equation to be valid.
The redundancy inside a transmission line of Z0 characteristic
impedance means we don't have to deal with voltages at all if
we know the length of the transmission line and the reflection
coefficient of the load. Pfor = Vfor^2/Z0 Pref = Vref^2/Z0

Perhaps you could carry out the calculations for a slightly
different experiment. Use a 25 ohm source impedance and a
voltage oF 70.7 RMS.

Note you are cutting the source voltage and source resistance
in half while keeping the rest of the network the same. The
forward power cannot remain at 100w.

Forward and reverse power for the short circuited load will
still be 100 W, but only 200 W will be dissipated in the
source resistor. It is not obvious to me how to compute the
interference term for this case.

Nope, forward and reverse power will not still be 100w.
Forward and reverse power will be 50w. It will be
44.44w + 4.94w + 0.549w + 0.06w + ... = 50 watts
The source is now exhibiting a power reflection coefficient
of 0.3333^2 = 0.1111 so there is a multiple reflection
transient state before reaching steady-state.

50w + 50w + 2*SQRT(50w*50w) = 200 watts
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com