Motionless Electromagnetic Generator

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Perpetual motion machine:
Motionless Electromagnetic Generator
Disciplines: physics and electrical engineering
Core Tenets: Device started from an external pulse and, then, powered directly from the device's generated electricity and the surrounding environmental vacuum energy.
Year Proposed: c. 2002

Original Proponents:

Thomas E. Bearden

Current Proponents:

Researchers of "free energy", energy which may be directly utilized (and returned) by a device from the surroundings

Theory violation:

Second law of thermodynamics
Motionless Electromagnetic Generator is reportedly a perpetual motion machine. Such machines violate the known laws of physics. Claims of the development of such devices are considered pseudoscience by most scientists.

The Motionless Electromagnetic Generator (MEG) is a proposed device which is most notable for claims of over-unity operation, a feat which would violate the second law of thermodynamics. Allegedly, the device can sustain its operation in addition to powering a load without application of external electrical power, by extraction of vacuum energy from the immediate environment. The device strongly resembles a standard transformer, but contrary to these a permanent magnet is included in the design and the associated circuitry shifts the operation point of the magnetic core, or to put it differently, switches the direction of the majority of the magnetic flux path. The MEG is alternatively pulsed to provide induced output current pulses. The United States patent office granted U.S. Patent 6362718  to the five inventors: Stephen L. Patrick, Thomas E. Bearden, James C. Hayes, James L. Kenny, and Kenneth D. Moore.

Contents

[edit] Description

The MEG appears to be a special type of transfomer with a permanent magnet in its main flux path. According to some investigators, [attribution needed] this distorts the hysteresis curve enough to cause flux saturation of the core and generates voltage spikes on the output coils (but this is clearly against the stipulations put forth in the patent).

Within the MEG, a set of input coils and a set of output coils extend around portions of the transformer-type magnetic core. A pair of input and output coils are on the right and left of the transformer frame. A permanent magnet is positioned in middle of the magnetic core. A permanent magnet furnishes magnetic flux lines moving from the north pole outward into the core material, resulting in a right and a left magnetic path. These paths extend externally between the north and south magnetic poles. A driving electrical current through each of the input coils (acting as a type of choke coil) reduces a level of magnetic flux from the permanent magnet within the magnet path around which the input coil extends.

The MEG's magnetic core is composed of a magnetic alloy (of crystalline grains (or crystallite) of a few nanometers). These are used because of the material's rapid switching of magnetic flux characteristics. Each crystallite is a single-domain particle in magnetic terms. One of the magnetic materials preferred is the alloy of cobalt-niobium-boron; this alloy has a near-zero magnetostriction and relatively strong magnetization. This alloy also has a relatively high mechanical strength and corrosion resistance. Other magnetic materials acceptable to be used can be iron-rich amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys. These materials exhibit a greater magnetization than the cobalt based alloys. An example of this alloy material would be iron-boron-silicon-niobium-copper. Though the permeability of this alloy is limited by its relatively large levels of magnetostriction, the formation of a nanocrystalline material dramatically reduces this level of magnetostriction and favors easy magnetization. [1]

Electrical circuit.
Electrical circuit.

Initially, a sensing and switching circuit connects the switching and control circuit to an external power source. External power sources can include, but are not limited to, a battery. The "switching and control circuit" is connected to an oscillator driver that is the clock input of a flip-flop circuit. The alternate outputs (Q and Q') of the flip-flop are connected through independent driver circuits; such circuits can include a darlington pair or a one-shot circuit (such as the one described in U.S. Patent 5268594 ), to operate the FETs. The FETs alternately drive the input 'choking' coils. After being started, a "sensing and switching circuit" detects if there is a predetermined level of voltage available from a regulator circuit. Once this condition is met, the power input to the switching and control circuit is switched from the external power source to the output of the regulator circuit. After this switching event, the electromagnetic generator operates without an application of external power. [2]

It is notable that, according to the patent, during operation of the MEG the input coils are never driven to the point that the core material becomes saturated. If the core material is saturated, subsequent increases in input current that do occur have no corresponding effect in the magnetic flux and input power is wasted. In the MEG, the switching of current flow within the input coils does not need to be sufficient to stop the flow of flux in one of the magnetic paths while promoting the flow of magnetic flux in the other magnetic path. The electromagnetic generator works by changing the flux pattern; it does not need to be completely switched from one side to another. [3]

Critics have pointed out that US Patent Office does not grant patents to "perpetual motion machines" without a working model [4]. Because no such model was provided in this case, it must be concluded that either the patent does not imply perpetual motion, or the Patent Office did not understand the specifics of the application.


In an alternative embodiment of an electromagnetic generator, the magnetic core includes annular spaced-apart plates, with posts and permanent magnets extending in an alternating fashion between the plates. An output coil extends around each of these posts. Input coils extending around portions of the plates are pulsed to cause the induction of current within the output coils.

[edit] History and controversy

Tom Bearden announced the arrival of the MEG technology (Motionless Electromagnetic Generator) on March 26 2002. This device was supposed to be in mass production by 2003, and claimed to produce unlimited energy from the vacuum, to answer mankind's power needs. It was promoted through JLNlabs[5], Cheniere.org[6], and an Egroup called "MEG Builders"[7]. The device was even written up in Vol. 14., No. 1, 2001, Foundations of Physics Letters[8]. As of 2006, the MEG is still not in production, and Tom Bearden claims he needs about $11 million to develop it to a viable commercial form. [9] Tom also admits he presently has no working prototype, stating the 'last working demonstrator was promptly destroyed'. [10]

Classical electromagnetism does not contain any mechanism allowing for "over-unity" or "free energy" devices. Tom Bearden explains the operation of the MEG with a wide range of alternative theories, including the proposal that all electrical devices, from batteries to electromechanical generators, in reality operate on vacuum energy. However, the theory seems to offer no concrete testable predictions, and is generally dismissed by the physics community at large. Bearden himself has little formal training in physics and one analysis of these theories describes them as "full of misconceptions and misunderstandings concerning the theory of the electromagnetic field"[11].

A point within the framework from Bearden rests on the allegation that during the reformulation of James Clerk Maxwell's original theory (of quaternions) by Oliver Heaviside and Josiah Gibbs into vector notation key elements were lost in the original theory. Also, voltage spikes generated by the machine could be mistaken for over-unity phenomena. The claimed suppression of various aspects of the MEG device and the theory behind it are examples of free energy suppression conspiracy theory.

There is also a controversy on a contending claim to intellectual property. Joe Flynn was granted a patent that contains an innovation similar to the 'MEG' as a minor subsection of his flux core invention. This is contained in U.S. Patent 6246561 , "Methods for controlling the path of magnetic flux from a permanent magnet and devices incorporating the same" (Flynn, June 12, 2001) in the "Power Conversion" section. Flynn states that,

"[...] With continuous flux paths the static flux from the permanent magnet or magnets is useless. However, if the static flux of the permanent magnet confined to the flux paths were modified to be time varying it would have utility for electromagnetic induction devices for power conversion like transformers and power inverters".

He also states within his patent that the basic method for controlling flux of a permanent magnet to provide motion (linear and rotary) can also be applied to time varying the static flux from the permanent magnet. Flynn's more complicated construction, though, utilizes four control coils and a single permanent magnet and, in an alternate embodiment, uses two control coils and two permanent magnets. The Flynn prior art was not cited in the MEG patent application, and the intellectual property has yet to be formally tested.

[edit] Further reading

  • Raymond J. Radus, "Permanent-Magnet Circuit using a `Flux-Transfer` Principle". Engineers' Digest, 24(1-6) Jan.-Jun. 1963, p. 86.
  • Robert O'Handley, Modern Magnetic Materials, Principles and Applications, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000, pp. 456-468.
  • Robert C. Weast, CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 1978-1979, p. B-50.
  • Honeywell.com web site, "amorphous metals". (ed. Honeywell sold off its Metglas amorphous metals division)


[edit] External articles and references

Description
  • ↑  Patrick, et al., US6362718: Motionless electromagnetic generator, March 26, 2002. Column 3 and 4, Lines 75 to 100.
  • ↑  Patrick, et al., US6362718: Motionless electromagnetic generator, March 26, 2002. Column 7 and 8, Lines 65 to 105.
  • ↑ Patrick, et al., US6362718: Motionless electromagnetic generator, March 26, 2002. Column 7 and 8, Lines 21 to 38.
  • ↑  US Patent Office Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) 608.03.
History and controversy
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