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Biefeld–Brown effect


The Biefeld–Brown effect is an electrical effect that produces an ionic wind that transfers its momentum to surrounding neutral particles. The effect was named by inventor Thomas Townsend Brown who claimed that he did a series of experiments with professor of astronomy Paul Alfred Biefeld, a former teacher of Brown who Brown claimed was his mentor and co-experimenter at Denison University in Ohio. The phenomenon was also given the name "electrogravitics" by Brown based on his belief this was an electricity/gravity phenomenon. The effect is more widely referred to as electrohydrodynamics (EHD) or sometimes electro-fluid-dynamics, a counterpart to the well-known magnetohydrodynamics. Extensive research was performed during the 1950s and 1960s on the use of this electric propulsion effect during the publicized era of the United States gravity control propulsion research (1955–1974).

There is renewed focus on the Biefield–Brown effect with the spread in interest in high-voltage powered experimental flying devices known as ionocraft or lifters.

The effect is generally believed to rely on corona discharge, which allows air molecules to become ionized near sharp points and edges. Usually, two electrodes are used with a high voltage between them, ranging from a few kilovolts and up to megavolt levels, where one electrode is small or sharp, and the other larger and smoother. The most effective distance between electrodes occurs at an electric potential gradient of about 10 kV/cm, which is just below the nominal breakdown voltage of air between two sharp points, at a current density level usually referred to as the saturated corona current condition. This creates a high field gradient around the smaller, positively charged electrode. Around this electrode, ionization occurs, that is, electrons are stripped from the atoms in the surrounding medium; they are literally pulled right off by the electrode's charge.


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