Alan Francoeur
Alan L. Francoeur | |
|---|---|
| Residence | Penticton, British Columbia, Canada |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Known for | Interference Disc electric generator; ALF fuel vaporizer; revival of the Ed Gray EMA motor technology |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Electromagnetic energy conversion, permanent magnet machines, fuel vaporization |
| Institutions | Magnetic Energy Systems (EMA Magnetic Energy Systems Inc.) |
Alan L. Francoeur (the surname is sometimes rendered Francouer, including in the 2004 Tesla Tech conference programme) is a Canadian independent inventor and researcher based in Penticton, British Columbia. He is known for the Interference Disc electric generator, for a stainless-steel fuel vaporizer system for internal combustion engines, and for his work collecting and reverse-engineering the surviving hardware of Edwin Gray's EMA motor technology. He works entirely outside academic and corporate research institutions.
Biography
Francoeur has described conceiving the interference-disc concept in 1985 while working in the mining industry at Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and building and testing a first prototype in a Calgary, Alberta machine shop in the summer of 1986. He has stated that the development consumed several decades of part-time research and roughly $35,000 of his own funding.
He trades as Magnetic Energy Systems (also given as EMA Magnetic Energy Systems Inc.), through which he develops and demonstrates his generator and vaporizer work. Alongside the energy research he has described a broader interest in self-sufficiency, including greenhouse horticulture for year-round food growing in colder Canadian regions.
Francoeur is unusual among independent energy researchers in that he has published detailed construction specifications for his generator rather than keeping them proprietary, stating that he released the material publicly in order to advance the field.
Scientific contributions
Interference Disc generator
The Interference Disc Electric Generator is Francoeur's principal device. Instead of moving a conductor through a magnetic field in the conventional way, the machine keeps both the permanent magnets and the pickup coils stationary and rotates a thin ferrous "interference disc" through the air gap between them. The disc's fins alternately shunt and release the magnetic flux path, so the flux through the coils is chopped rather than swept, inducing alternating current.
Francoeur argues that this arrangement has several practical advantages: there are no brushes or commutators, no heavy rotating internal masses, and very little startup torque is required, because the rotor is a light disc rather than a wound armature. His later builds use neodymium magnets, amorphous-metal core material for the coils, and magnetic shielding. He has reported experimenting systematically with the number of fins on the interference disc — testing ten-, eleven- and twelve-finned versions — and found an eleven-finned disc gave the least rotational drag.
Francoeur presents the design in the context of what the independent-energy community calls overunity research, and he has published his specifications with that framing. Claims that the machine returns more electrical output than the mechanical input it requires are his and other proponents' claims and have not been independently confirmed.
EMA motor and the Ed Gray legacy
Francoeur has stated that he holds the largest surviving collection of remnants of Ed Gray's EMA ("Electro Magnetic Association") motor technology, and much of his later work has been directed at reverse-engineering the Gray power supply — in particular the high-voltage, energy-recovery switching arrangement that Gray claimed allowed the motor's magnetic impulses to be produced without a corresponding drain on the source. Francoeur describes his goal as reviving the original EMA motors and their associated equipment as practical, regenerating prime movers, and has worked on multi-phase, multi-frequency permanent-magnet dynamos in the 6 kW and larger range as part of that programme.
ALF fuel vaporizer
Beginning around 1980–81, Francoeur developed what he calls the ALF Vaporizer: a stainless-steel vaporizer vessel that replaces conventional liquid fuel delivery to an internal combustion engine with a vapour feed. The intent is that the engine draws fuel already in the vapour phase rather than as an atomised liquid spray, which proponents of vapour-carburetion argue gives a more complete burn and substantially better fuel economy. Francoeur has published a construction and operating manual for the system. The fuel-economy improvements attributed to vapour systems of this kind are claims made by their developers and users rather than independently established results.
TeslaTech
Francoeur spoke at the ExtraOrdinary Technology Conference organised by Tesla Tech:
- "PerMag Motors & Vapor Systems" — 2004 ExtraOrdinary Technology Conference, Miller Free Enterprise Center, Salt Lake Community College, Sandy, Utah, 29 July – 1 August 2004. The programme lists the surname as "Francouer".
He has also presented in the related Energy Science & Technology Conference series:
- "Electricity, Gravity, Magnetism and Singularity" — 2017 Energy Science & Technology Conference.
Works
- The Interference Disk Electric Generator — published technical description and construction specifications.
- ALF Vaporizer System Manual.
- "Electricity, Gravity, Magnetism and Singularity" (2017), recorded presentation.