The Biefeld-Brown Effect

[Nom]

I came across this last year while reading Charles Berlitz's book on the Philadelphia Experiment, and was fascinated by it. Just a few minutes ago I was watching Numb3rs for the first time in months and lo and behold they actually showed an example of this phenomenon, which inspired me to come here and make this post.

 

 

 

First, a simple explanation of the B-BE. It was discovered during the late 40's/early 50's (I'm unsure about the exact date) when the US government was actively researching gravitational propulsion. The basic concept that it relies on is ionization resulting from high voltage. When two conductive nodes are placed a specific distance from each other and charged with electricity, one small and sharp, the other larger and smoother, the smaller one becomes charged much more rapidly and to a greater extent, and ionization of the atoms in the air around it occurs. This leaves a whole bunch of positively charged atoms surrounding the small electrode, and they are therefore attracted to the larger which is still negatively charged. This creates a net force of momentum between the two.

 

 

 

Now, this has been around for a long time, and due to technological restrictions it hasn't come to much fruition. But I think that with today's ever-advancing technology it could prove to be a relevant and extremely useful principle. There have been several experiments in creating small 'lifters' using this effect, and there was even a patent in 1964. I'm sure that with a bit of attention and thought, this principle, also known as electrohydrodynamics (EHD), could potentially provide an alternative to gas-powered vehicles and all manner of economical and convenient uses.

 

 

 

Myself, I'm going to look into building a lifter, as I wanted to months ago but never got around to.

 

 

 

Here are some wiki pages on the subject, you can follow the reference links for more info or just use Google:

 

 

 

Lifter page

 

Biefeld-Brown Effect

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discuss.

[klankaos]

Hmm... The effect presents some interesting possibilities. However, is the B-BE a more powerful cause of motion than conventional methods? Could it be used for practical purposes, or is it simply an interesting twist in electricity than can produce a little bit of movement? I'd be interested in seeing what larger-scale experiments end up producing, as from your post and the article, I got the idea that the effect had only been produced with small models of the electrodes. For example, could a larger one power a car, or something similar? And for a final question... Which direction does the momentum go in? Does it push up, down, sideways, or multiple different ones?

[Lenin64]

Wait, is this like a generator or something like anti-grav? If it is anti-grav, freakin' awesome, but just regular relectricity or something, meh.

[Nom]

To Klan, as of now there have not been very many experiments into the effect, which is partially the reason i posted. A lot of that information, such as the ratio of weight to force and how much payload the lifter can take is still up in the air, though I remember reading somewhere that a scientist by the name of Jean-Louis Naudin has been experimenting a lot with small models, and has come to some conclusions. I'll try to find a link to her website.

 

 

 

To answer your other question, the direction of the force can be manipulated any way you see fit, merely by the placement of the nodes. The momentum will always flow towards the smaller node - a correction on my original post - and so you can get it to go in any direction you want by arranging the electrodes accordingly.

 

 

 

Lenin, this is not anti-gravity, it is electrohydrodynamics. However, that doesn't make it any less awesome.

 

 

 

Here is a video of a lifter in action, it's a Youtube link. There are lots of these around:

 

 

 

[Barihawk]

Wait, is this like a generator or something like anti-grav? If it is anti-grav, freakin' awesome, but just regular relectricity or something, meh.

 

 

 

Mythbusters proved it isn't anti-grav. It's actually providing thrust, not anti-gravity.

[Lenin64]

Alright, I think I get it now. So in all the futuristic movies and such with hover cars and the like, this is what could make those a reality?

[Nom]

Possibly, but it will take a lot of experimentation to nail down constants and figure out what kind of payload it can handle in proportion to the voltage and weight of the craft itself.

 

 

 

It's still quite fascinating :) .

[klankaos]

So the basic principle in building a lifter is to place a small, sharp node on top of a larger, smooth node, and your lifter will go up? sounds relatively simple, and looks quite impressive. Extra Science marks pl0x?

 

 

 

I'm actually gonna see if I can build one and show it to my science teacher for extra marks =) Any idea on where I could get instructions for the building?

[Deiophobus]

good luck with it, but how much would the materials for this kind of this cost? And how much time would one have to devote to it?

 

 

 

P.S. I like Numb3rs :P

[assassin_696]

Interesting stuff, any idea how much energy would be required to actually propel something useful though? I can't see the overall gain in momentum from a load of ions being that big.

[Nom]

So the basic principle in building a lifter is to place a small, sharp node on top of a larger, smooth node, and your lifter will go up? sounds relatively simple, and looks quite impressive. Extra Science marks pl0x?

 

 

 

I'm actually gonna see if I can build one and show it to my science teacher for extra marks =) Any idea on where I could get instructions for the building?

 

 

 

You can build one of these from tin foil and balsa wood, but the difficult part of it is the voltage, which is extremely dangerous. I'm not going to discourage you from doing it, but be very careful when dealing with such high voltage, as the 30KV required for this model can easily kill you.

 

 

 

So a simple model of these is relatively cheap, and it takes a lot of voltage, but achieving the voltage shouldn't be too much of an obstacle.

[nomadmike]

:-k Lets say I plug it into a wall socket, attach a long extension cord, make it pretty big.

 

 

 

Do you think it might fly high? Might be funny as a kite... :ohnoes: hope a bird doesn't land on it.

 

 

 

I'll ask my science teacher about this :

[hellbellz]

Aww. Looking at the title, I was hoping for the explanation of the phenomenon where people crap their pants when they hear a note, credits to South Park. :lol:

[klankaos]

Sounds fun, I'd love to give it a try, however dangerous it may be :lol:

 

Interesting principle. I was surprised to see it was that easy to build, it doesn't even seem like it would take that long to make once you had the supplies, which aren't at all hard to get.

[meol]

I'm interested on how much thrust this can actually build. Do you have any numbers?

[Darkluniux]

To make a transportation system using this theory is very hard, firstly, you should kept in mind the risk of using the necessary Electrical energy to make "fly" a movil with the force to carry a person, also, it would need some bad conduction materials like rubber with the purpose to not kill or harmn the "beta-testers". Also, with the energy required, it would be cheaper and easy to create a turbine-powered vehicle.

 

 

 

Perhaps, with a Nuclear energy battery and a energy conversor "from nuclear to electric" ther eis a bosibility to create a useful model.

[Nom]

I'm interested on how much thrust this can actually build. Do you have any numbers?

 

 

 

I looked around, and the single-stage models that you see around and I linked to are actually running at about 1% electrical:mechanical efficiency, and they aren't exactly struggling to get off the ground. Near 100% efficiency can be achieved with good design, so at that point it is simply providing enough DC electrical input to make it go the speed you want.

 

 

 

However, I have also read that the thrust may be constant no matter what you do, due to the nature of the way it is created; that is, the fact that the electrodes must be a certain distance apart to create the thrust, and if you increase the voltage then they will need to be moved accordingly. However, this does not at all disqualify EHD from being a viable option for propulsion.

 

 

 

I'm sorry to be so vague, but the thing is research on these is scarce and inconclusive. The scientific community pretty much dropped all research into EHD by the end of the 60's once it was discovered that it won't work in vacuum.

[Systemless]

It's all nice for an experiment, but I don't see any advantage of this approach compared to a classical propeller (fan). In the end you will need to transfer the same amount of momentum to the fluid (air) to create a certain amount of thurst for both the EHD thruster and the propeller. The only choice you have (beside the method you use to accelerate the fluid): Do you accelerate a small amount of air to a high speed or a large amount of air to a slower speed. For technical application you will need as much air to as much speed as you can handle and control. The main problem is not to accelerate the air, but to accelerate it in a controlled and efficient way. The fan based hover system (also know as helicopter) has taken a very long development time to be controllable and enough efficient. With all the high voltage (security) and no experiments with larger loads (= larger air speeds), no efficiency at all (1% lol) so far, and no controllability it is a very long way to go.

 

 

 

.: Systemless :.

[Nom]

It's all nice for an experiment, but I don't see any advantage of this approach compared to a classical propeller (fan). In the end you will need to transfer the same amount of momentum to the fluid (air) to create a certain amount of thurst for both the EHD thruster and the propeller. The only choice you have (beside the method you use to accelerate the fluid): Do you accelerate a small amount of air to a high speed or a large amount of air to a slower speed. For technical application you will need as much air to as much speed as you can handle and control. The main problem is not to accelerate the air, but to accelerate it in a controlled and efficient way. The fan based hover system (also know as helicopter) has taken a very long development time to be controllable and enough efficient. With all the high voltage (security) and no experiments with larger loads (= larger air speeds), no efficiency at all (1% lol) so far, and no controllability it is a very long way to go.

 

 

 

.: Systemless :.

 

 

 

It does have a long way to go, but I don't think you understand completely the concept. First, the biggest advantage of this method of propulsion is no moving parts. Do I have to list how many advantages that gives over a propeller?

 

 

 

And I don't understand how you can say that you accelerate a large amount of air to a slower speed; this is ion propulsion, so denser air would result in far superior performance.

 

 

 

Yes, the problem with this whole concept is that no one has spent the time to develop it. But your '1% lol' comment wasn't necessary, as I already said that is only exhibited by the simple models that anyone can build out of a few pieces of balsa wood, some tin foil, and some copper wire with the directions and simple measurements taken from the internet. More precise and calcualted models have been professionally tested in the past and achieved near 100% efficiency. The problem is, as I have stated, scientists lost interest in EHD when they realized it was ion-based and therefore could not work in vacuum.

 

 

 

And 100% efficiency is far superior to most propellers.

[klankaos]

And 100% efficiency is far superior to most propellers.

 

Yeah... Let's just try building a propeller-based craft like this and see the efficiency it gets, using this simplistic of materials. Probably not very high :lol:

[Systemless]

yes you have no moving parts, but you have still moving fluid (air). Now either you find the materials to build an insanely large structure which would allow you to keep the speed of the air you accelerate slow, or you stay within reasonable sized machines and have to accelerate to a higher speed. The insanely large structure will fail not only because you won't find the material to build it stiff enough, but also because it is just too large to be used. For a technical application, things that get larger than a common airplane or helicopter are very unpractical and come with a lot more trouble. Keep in mind that we have already a lifter system without losses: The airship. And the main problem with those are their delicate structure and their unhandy size.

 

Now we would want a system of about the size and weight of a common helicopter, but with EHD thruster instead of a rotor. Thats ok, but you will need to generate about the same vertical airflow. Of course you won't have the additional speed of the rotor itself generating friction losses in the air. But still you will have a lot of fast flowing air around your electrodes and structure which will produce friction losses as well. My "lol" at the 1% was mainly, because I don't like any theoretical or under special conditions achieved efficiency numbers for which it is claimed that they may be achieved in a practical setting as well.

 

 

 

Yeah... Let's just try building a propeller-based craft like this and see the efficiency it gets, using this simplistic of materials. Probably not very high

 

If you supply the energy by wire and keep everything at an extremly low weight (very low air speeds) I am sure you can build pretty efficient helicopters from balsa and condenser foil.

 

 

 

And I don't understand how you can say that you accelerate a large amount of air to a slower speed; this is ion propulsion, so denser air would result in far superior performance.

 

 

 

You can accelerate as many ions as you like, in the end what counts are how much air you accelerate using your thruster. If any ions leave your thruster you have not only the problem of your thruster getting charged itself, but as well that your efficency will be very poor, because the energy to create the ions would be lost. So what leaves your thruster is accelerated air, with the usual density. So this is not ion propulsion in the classical sense, since you use your ions only to accelerate air molecule in the end. There exist working ion thrusters ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_engines ) but the only known advantage of these thrusters is their propellant efficiency (which is important for spacecrafts).

 

 

 

.: Systemless :.