Stability of Permanent Magnets

Claims that magnets deliver energy by losing their strength

In the past, several magnet motor inventors have claimed that the permanent magnets in their machines deliver energy into those machines by losing their strength over time, i.e. that the magnets themselves are not stable, and so are a source of energy from that loss of strength. David Porter makes this claim at 1:04:20 in the video cited previously, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfEbCBcddQw 

Yasunori Takahashi made a similar claim, to Chris Tinsley, about his Self-Generating Motor:—

"I asked Mr. Takahashi about this scooter. Was it over-unity? Seemingly not. Apparently the magnets lose strength at about 3% per year, and Takahashi claims this to be the source of the energy. But he had a glint in his eye when he said it. When I said, "No, it isn't," he grinned."

Ref: "Chris Tinsley: Travels in the New Energy Age," Infinite Energy magazine Vol 1, No 5/6, 1996, p29.

Such claims imply that permanent magnets are "used up" as if they were, say, "a gallon of petrol or a torch battery" (we'll meet that expression again, below).

Ridiculous — in theory and practise

This is a ridiculous concept, both theoretically and practically, as will now be shown. Why some inventors have made such claims, which they must know will reduce their credibility, is yet another of the many unanswered questions that swirl around the subject of over-unity magnet motors.

Engineering Design Guide

There is some useful information on-line about magnet stability, e.g. at http://www.magnetsales.com/design/designg_frames/designg_2.htm However, I couldn't find what I was really looking for — the Engineering Design Guide for permanent magnets which I first found in my local Public Library, of all places. It was eliminated from there many years ago (but not before I had copied most of it). I don't have any way of identifying it now apart from its first page, reproduced above.

Quoting from page 11 of this Engineering Design Guide:—

"Stability of permanent magnets

The designer planning to use permanent magnets must be confident that each magnet will remain stable in its working environment, or that any changes will be predictable. When a fully magnetized magnet is removed from the magnetizer, the first immediate loss of magnetization continues on a logarithmic scale, subsequent periods of 10, 10², 10³, etc, times the interval over which the initial loss was measured resulting in equal changes. If the first rapid change is accelerated by stabilization after magnetization, then — assuming a fixed steady temperature — the magnet is likely to remain stable to within 0.01 per cent for many years.

The chief causes of magnetic instabilty are temperature changes, exposure to stray magnetic fields, and mechanical shock or vibration, although in each case the same underlying mechanism is responsible. When a magnet is fully magnetized, it is thermodynamically unstable with the least stable domains trying to return to a state of lower energy by domain boundary movement or reversals. If the magnet is subjected to stray magnetic fields, or if thermal agitation is increased by a rise in temperature, then these unstable domains are the first to revert to their equilibrium state, leading to a loss of magnetization in the magnet. If, after fully magnetizing, some flux reduction is deliberately brought about by the application of a small alternating field, the unstable domains are the ones which are affected and, since these have already relaxed, a subsequent increase in temperature will have a reduced effect. It follows that stabilization by alternating flux reduction is a good general insurance against further loss, but for the highest stability requirements, this should be followed by cycling through a temperature range slightly wider than that to which the magnet will be exposed in use. Similarly the magnet may be subjected to any other abnormal conditions it is likely to encounter (for example, excessive vibration) in order to minimize further losses from these causes before it is put into operation."

So, as long as a magnet is first subjected to any conditions tending to demagnetize it which are slightly in excess of those which it will encounter in use, it will remain stable indefinitely.


(BH)_max  or Energy Product calculation

Quoting again from the above Engineering Design Guide:—

"There is one particular working point on the demagnetization curve [of flux density B versus magnetizing force H] for which the product BH is a maximum. This maximum is referred to as (BH)_max and is a useful characteristic of the material. It has the dimensions of energy per unit volume (Jm^-3) and is sometimes called the energy product, although (BH)_max is actually numerically twice the available energy of the magnet. For this reason the use of this term is not recommended, particularly as a magnet is not used as a source of energy in the same way as, say, a gallon of petrol or a torch battery."

The amount of permanent magnetic material used in David Porter's or Yasunori Takahashi's motors has not been reported, but we can certainly say that the permanent magnets in the Kure Tekko motor must have weighed less than its total reported weight of 155 pounds, i.e. 70.307kg. If we (generously) use that figure, and (very generously) assume all magnets to have been samarium-cobalt with a density of 8250kg/m³, that would give a volume of 0.008522m³ for its total magnetic material.

At say 20MgOe = 159155 J/m³ for samarium-cobalt, that means the total available energy from the energy product of the Kure Tekko motor's magnets would be very generously estimated at ½ × 0.008522 × 159155 = 678.16 joules.

We also have a reported power output for the Kure Tekko motor of 45 hp = 33556.5 watts. So if energy was really being taken from the magnets themselves to run it, then at full power it would have exhausted itself in about two-hundredths of a second!

The Takahashi "Self-Generating Motor"

Primary References:—

Infinite Energy magazine No 5-6, 1996, pp28-29, 35 and 36-37.

Japanese patent JPS2002291228 (A)

Fig 1  Sciex scooter with Takahashi Self Generating Motor

In 1994 in London, Yasunori Takahashi, Director of Research and Development at Sciex (UK) Ltd, demonstrated the first version of an electric motor scooter incorporating his permanent magnet Self Generating Motor (SGM). An article in the September 1994 issue of the British Broadcasting Company’s Top Gear magazine noted the impressive performance of the scooter. It was also demonstrated to a Senior Engineer at Nissan’s European Technical Center who remarked “If it checks out in our own tests, it has huge implications for everything which uses a motor — it could revolutionise the world.”

Chris Tinsley — investigation

In November 1995 Takahashi allowed Infinite Energy Contributing Editor, electrical engineer Chris Tinsley, an impromptu test ride of a later version of the scooter, shown in Figure 1 above.

Tinsley reported that after 25 minutes of riding under conditions which would have flattened much larger batteries (his intention was to flatten the batteries if possible) the small scooter batteries remained fully charged, as measured by his own voltmeter; the brakes were hot, and the motor was barely warm.  He was also shown a video of a Takahashi motor driving an alternator powering lamps estimated at about 120 watts, with no external energy input. Tinsley wrote an interesting report [Ref 1] and he managed to obtain some very provocative data from Takahashi’s company Sciex (UK) Ltd [Ref 2]. Some of the product literature claimed that at constant speed travelling the Self Generating Motor would deliver sufficient free energy not only to propel the scooter, but also to provide battery charging as necessary.

Fig 2  Takahashi Self Generating Motor and controller,
including dimension drawings.
Image from Infinite Energy magazine No 5-6, 1996, p37.

Fig 3  Images from patent JPS 2002291228.
Note the flat permanent magnets underneath the rotor poles,
and the stator similar to that of a switched reluctance motor.

Magnetic Power Inc. — problems

In mid 1996 the Takahashi scooter was shipped to Magnetic Power Inc., in the USA. After problems with customs clearance, it was eventually tried out, and its batteries were quickly flattened.

About a year and a half after that, the following advertisement appeared in Infinite Energy magazine:—

“For sale. Sciex scooter with Takahashi motor. Used only for test purposes. It failed to confirm his claims.  Accelerates rather well (possibly due to ultracapacitors). Otherwise standard electric scooter from Taiwan. $2,000 invested. Make offer. Magnetic Power, Inc. 707-829-9391.” [Ref 3]

Questions

As usual, there are questions begging for answers. For example:

-  What was the outcome of the tests which Nissan planned to do?

-  Where are the scooters now? (i.e. the original, and the one tested in the UK and the USA).

-  Has the motor and controller of either scooter been studied in detail by an independent competent investigator? If so, what was found?

-  What was the official reason for the difficulties with clearing the scooter through US customs? (Bearing in mind that the delay could have allowed some technical dirty trick to have been played — for example substitution of the motor, and/or damage to the controller).

-  Why was the advertisement to sell the scooter placed in Infinite Energy magazine — a very unusual forum for vehicle sales? And why did it need to underline the failure of the scooter to confirm Takahashi’s claims? (Admirable honesty in advertising, but a cynic might be forgiven for thinking that the main purpose of the advertisement was to discredit Takahashi, rather than to sell the scooter).

-  What has happened to Takahashi today? He seems to be keeping an extremely low profile. And what were/are his comments on these developments? This touches on one more question which Infinite Energy themselves asked:— [Ref 4]

-  Why would someone of Takahashi’s background [Ref 5] get involved in something like this if it were fraudulent? What would be the point?

Chris Tinsley — dead

It is certain that Chris Tinsley would not have left questions like these unanswered. But he could not pursue them, because he died suddenly on October 1, 1997. (See http://perpetualmotion21.blogspot.com/2015/08/harassment-and-premature-deaths-1989_22.html).

So we have been left, for many years, with a very unsatisfactory situation. The completely different performances of the scooter in the UK and the USA remain unexplained; the engineer best placed to look further into that died before he could do any further investigation, and the scooter motor's inventor has disappeared, at least from public view.

As seems de rigueur in such cases, claims have appeared for and against Takahashi, such as the usual unproven accusations of fraud, in the (surprisingly easily found) email exchange here.

This leads to a final question, which again I cannot answer — has any other credible investigator made any progress in following up on the Takahashi Self Generating Motor?

References

1. Infinite Energy magazine No 5-6 p28-30.
2. Infinite Energy magazine No 5-6 p35-37. Also see T. E. Bearden’s article in this issue p38-55, which contains some disinformation.
3.  Infinite Energy magazine No 17 p91.
4.  Infinite Energy magazine No 10 p57.
5. See the Curriculum Vitæ for Yasunori Takahashi in Infinite Energy magazine No 5-6 p35, which shows for example that in 1983 he resigned from his position as General Manager for Research and Development for Sony Corporation, to found his own company, Sciex (UK) Ltd. He holds many patents in advanced electrical technology. (I have already posted Takahashi's CV here).

The Galtech Carousel Motor/Generator

Primary references:—

Lightworks video "Free Energy — The Race to Zero Point"

US Pat 5625241

Also see http://blog.go-here.nl/4831


More electrical power claimed to be delivered than used

Here are two screenshots from the 2008 Lightworks video "Free Energy — The Race to Zero Point."  The first one shows an Energy Research Corporation advertisement. Its introduction states "In controlled laboratory tests, the ERC's new motor/generator technology delivers more electrical power than it uses. This incredible breakthrough could one day make your electric bill a thing of the past."

The second screenshot shows a closeup of this "carousel" motor/generator, invented by Russell R. Chapman, Harold E. Ewing and principal inventor David R. Porter of Galtech Semiconductor Materials Corporation. It was claimed to be particularly suitable for high speed/high frequency operation.

Energy Research Corporation was a wholly owned subsidiary of Galtech Semiconductor Materials Corporation, which was itself renamed Real Data Inc. in 2013.

This full video has been posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfEbCBcddQw. The section concerning David Porter and the carousel motor/generator starts at 59:54.

A strange claim

I don't propose to comment on the Galtech carousel motor/generator in detail. I'll just note one very strange claim made by David Porter, that it takes energy from an ongoing loss of strength of the permanent magnets incorporated in it.

Porter is not the only inventor to make such a claim. I'll examine it more closely in the post after next.

Repulsion Motor UAER — Drum vs Disc Part II

Disc design modelling, without repelling stator magnets

Fig 3a  Disc-design model

Figure 3a shows one of my early models of a toroidal electromagnet plus permanent magnet, as would be used in a disc-design UAER motor. The pole pieces on the electromagnet core (grey) are each 96 × 60 × 6, with 0.5mm airgaps to the 96 × 60 × 16 NdFeB35 magnet (blue). So the magnet has the same surface dimensions and total thickness as the magnet pair used before in the drum design. The electromagnet coil (transparent red) has a 4927.5 mm² current injection plane (solid red) which in this model delivers the same constant square-wave excitation pulse of 16400 amp-turns while the magnet is being vertically displaced from 0 to 96mm, as before.

The magnet is first attracted in to the unenergized core, until there is zero vertical displacement, as shown. The electromagnet is then energized as noted above, to repel the magnet out from the core.

Once again, only forces in the vertical Z-direction are relevant to the analysis.

Fig 3b   Modelling results, square-wave excitation

Results

Figure 3b shows graphed results from this modelling.

The total energy gained is 55.581 joules, without any added stator magnets. This is a worthwhile improvement over the drum design, with or without stator magnets added to the latter. Admittedly the toroidal electromagnet core has a somewhat larger cross-section than the core of the drum design electromagnet, but the total volume of steel is much the same between the two options. They also have exactly the same total permanent magnet volumes, and excitations.

So, at least from the work done so far, it seems that the disc design of the UAER motor is preferable to the drum design.

Further modelling

Fig 4   Modelling results, half-sinewave excitation

I have done quite a lot more modelling of versions of this design. Figure 4 shows graphed results from the same model as shown in Figure 3a except for a reduced-length permanent magnet, but with the excitation now a half-sinewave, with details as noted on the graph (red curve). This modelling was done for comparison with some real-world experiments, which I may discuss in future posts.

Fig 5   An experimental toroidal electromagnet I built in 2009

Repulsion Motor UAER — Drum vs Disc Part I

Introduction

The somewhat cryptic title of this post refers to the "Unenergized Attraction - Energized Repulsion" concept that I've discussed before, as used in both the Kure Tekko motor with its drum-shaped rotor (and its repelling stator magnets), and my version of it with its disc-shaped rotor.

In this and the next post, I'll compare these two versions of the concept, including some magnetostatic modelling of them.


Drum design — good and bad features

A bad feature of the drum design is that a lot of the electromagnet's magnetic flux goes more or less directly between adjacent inner edges of its pole pieces, and so that flux is largely wasted — it has little influence on the rotor magnets. With the disc design's toroidal electromagnet, essentially all of its flux must go across the full airgap between the faces of its pole pieces, and thus it interacts better with the rotor magnet.

A good feature of the drum design is that not only does its electromagnet repel the rotor permanent magnets, but modelling results show that it also attracts a portion of the backing steel in the region immediately behind these magnets. With no backing steel, this feature is not possible in the disc design.

Drum design modelling, without repelling stator magnets

Fig 1a   Drum design model, without stator magnets

Figure 1a is from a model of a drum design, flattened out into a linear configuration. This was done to remove any possible ambiguity in the results, since only forces in the vertical Z-direction are now relevant to the analysis.

In this first model, stator magnets have been omitted.

Data (all dimensions in millimeters):—

Rotor Magnets (blue): Each 96 × 60 × 8, NdFeB35.

Magnet Backing Steel (grey): 130.1 × 25 × 960, M19 steel.
(The backing steel is essentially "infinitely" long in this modelling).

Electromagnet Core (grey): Cross-section 57.15 × 38.1 = 2177.4 mm² 
Core is based on E300 transformer laminations (halved by shearing).
Pole pieces are 96 × 60 × 5, with 0.5 airgaps to magnets.

Electromagnet Coils: Current injection plane area (solid red) = 2 × 19.225 × 105.3 = 4048.8 mm². Total excitation 16400 amp-turns.

The magnet pair is first attracted in to the unenergized core, until there is zero vertical displacement between them, as shown. The electromagnet is then energized as noted above, while the magnet pair is repelled through a vertical distance of 96mm out from the core. The magnet pair then continues to move away from the core until the force between them has diminished to zero.

Fig 1b   Modelling results, drum design without stator magnets

Results

Figure 1b shows graphed results from this modelling.

The dip in the attraction force is probably genuine — I have seen it in several other models. The negative spike in the repulsion force beyond 96mm displacement could of course have been eliminated by continuing the excitation out to say 150mm of magnet displacement.

As modelled above, the total output energy is 46.603 joules.


Drum design modelling, with repelling stator magnets

Fig 2a   Drum design model, with stator magnets

Figure 2a is from a model of the same drum design as before, with a pair of repelling arc-shaped stator magnets and their backing steel added. These magnets are 1500 surface radius × 60 wide × 8 thick, starting tangential to the electromagnet pole pieces, extending 500 in the Z-direction. Their backing steel is also 130.1 × 25 cross-section, M19 steel.

Fig 2b   Modelling results, drum design with stator magnets

Results

Figure 2b shows graphed results from this modelling.

In this case the moving magnets are first attracted-in to the unenergized electromagnet core as before, and are then repelled-out under the stator magnets with the same 16400 amp-turns excitation over the same 96mm magnet displacement as before. They then experience further repulsion from the stator magnets until that repulsion has diminished to zero.

The total energy gained is 47.743 joules. This is only 2.45% higher than when the stator magnets were absent. Note that the increase is all in the attraction-in energy, while the net repulsion-out energy has actually decreased slightly.

Conclusion — stator magnets not worthwhile

The overall conclusion from these results seems clear enough: only a very small increase in total energy is gained at best with the stator magnets added, making the considerable extra cost and complication of adding them not worthwhile.

As is only to be expected, the stator magnets act to "smooth out" the mechanical energy delivered over the repulsion part of an operating cycle, but they do not add any net energy.

Other more cost-effective methods could be used to smooth out the mechanical energy delivered. The simplest method would be just to add a flywheel.

Of course, the more modelling that is done, the more secure will be the conclusion drawn from it. Ideally more modelling should be done for longer excitation durations, and for stator magnets generally closer overall to the moving magnets. However, this modelling would take more time than I can currently spare. (So it becomes one more item for my ever-increasing "to do" list!)

I'll look at the modelling of a comparable disc version of the UAER concept next time.