Chapter 7 - Design of heatless internal force engines

Designing an engine that delivers more power than it takes to run has been the top desire for all engineers. Many attempts have been made, especially in the field of electric motors. Always, they have failed. One such means was to use magnets to pull an iron mass up an incline, make it fall through a hole at the top, and use the kinetic energy gained to generate power, in a cycle.

I believe that the following designs are the only ones based upon the bold assertions of the fallibility of Newton's First Law of Motion, and in the resulting existence for the Law of Conservation of Energy only as a special case. They are backed by the mathematically derived predictions shown earlier in Chapter 3.

First, a simple, direct, linear design, which while showing the basic principles, is not really practical:

Imagine a single very heavy Internal Force Moved Body (IFMB) on a very smooth surface (such as ice, or rolling on ball-bearings). It accelerates from one end, and hits at high speed a bar (suitably padded to minimise noise pollution!) attached to a system of very powerful springs. The kinetic energy of the IFMB is transferred to the potential energy in the springs. Left just to themselves, they would push the IFMB back with equal speed. Some clever engineering could involve their transferring such potential energy to push back something else: such as a bar that is attached to a gear turning an enormous flywheel. The rotational energy of this flywheel is turned to electrical energy using a standard generator. If the mathematics involved in velocity addition, leading to the violation of the law of conservation of energy, is justified, more energy will be generated than consumed.

Part of the electrical energy generated by this generator is used to drive the IFMB. Initially, some battery, on some other device should drive it. The electrical energy generated should charge the battery.

After the IFMB stops at the other end, it is made to accelerate in the other direction. For the IFMB driven by electro-magnetic fields, this means change in direction for the current flowing through the bar. There is an identical situation at the other end the IFMB once again hits the system of springs which convert the kinetic energy to electrical energy. The IFMB keeps on moving backwards and forwards on the smooth bed, connected to the generator all the time.

The above design is easy to visualise. Let us see how much energy is generated, after putting in some realistic input values.

Let the IFMB weigh 2000 Kgs, and reach a speed of 150 Km/hour at impact. Then the kinetic energy will be, at impact, around 1.7 million joules. If we lose 0.7 million joules because of inefficiencies and the drive for the IFMB, we have 1 M joule. If this time for a hit takes 5 seconds, we have a fairly respectable 200 KWatt power plant using just one such IFMB. (For comparison, experimental nuclear reactors generated similar levels of power output, but very large power plants generate about a thousand times more power.) These figures are only indicative. Mechanical engineers could come up with much better figures, or otherwise say that the above values chosen are unrealistic. The sheer simplicity of the design may render it attractive for poor countries without fuel resources. Care should be taken about the hard-wearing quality of the surface over which the IFMB slides. Perhaps large ships could take to this design?

A better, and more practical, design, which is also rather more complex and presents many engineering challenges, is now presented. It is also portable. Theoretically at least it is scalable in size. It could power any existing moving vehicle the full implications we shall see later.

Imagine a hollow airless ellipsoidal container. Along its axis is a hollow shaft, which can rotate with minimum friction upon bearings. The general idea is to rotate this shaft to a very high speed using IFMBs, thereby increasing the rotational kinetic energy for the shaft. This power is converted into electrical energy; the shaft is also the armature for an electricity generator. As power is drained off, the shaft loses its angular speed; when this speed drops to a certain level the IFMBs start moving fast once again, then stop when the high speed is attained. So the current to the IFMBs is not continuously applied.

The IFMBs are connected at the outer end of hollow spokes joined to the shaft. There may be many of them, but care should be taken to ensure that the whole system remains balanced. Electricity to power the IFMBs is directed from the external batteries through the hollow shaft and the spokes.

Extra weights, to increase the moment of inertia, and for perfect balancing, are also attached to the shaft by such spokes.

For balance or redundancy, there should be two generators, one at the top and one at the bottom. A battery is used to start the IFMBs, but once they have started up, electricity is generated, and a feedback loop ensures that overall external power is not needed, while the battery is always kept fully charged.

The above design should be reliable for routine maintainance only the bearings need to be checked. Faulty IFMBs could be replaced on a modular basis.

The IFMBs can move at very high speed, limited by the air resistance and friction at the bearings. However, the problem of centrifugal force does exist it will affect the moving parts within the IFMB, by trying to throw them away. Overcoming the effects of centrifugal force should be one of the key challenges.

Some calculations, now. Since the IFMBs can move very fast, let us say that they reach a very high angular speed, say 500 rotations per second. Let the IFMBs stop accelerating (i.e. receive no current from the battery) at this value, and let them start accelerating when we are down to say 0-50 rotations of the shaft per second. Let the moment of inertia (a value to do with the masses and geometry of the moving body) for the moving shaft with IFMBs, weights and armatures be say 1,000,000 Kg-m². Then the available energy that may be drained off, as from a giant flywheel, taking losses into consideration, could be around 1000 M joules. If such draining off takes place over say 5 seconds, we have the equivalent of a very large power plant of 200 Mwatts. Internal force energises the engine; external force de-energises it.

This design, unlike the earlier one, is free from sound pollution. Since the IFMBs are revolving in a vacuum, the sound from the internal collisions will not be heard. By proper scaling, we could have smaller engines generating less power.

Finally, this design should be very cheap being made of mostly iron and copper. If the outer container is made transparent, it should also be very beautiful, if suitable lighting arrangements are made for the fast-circling objects.

If successful, it should be the greatest invention of all time.