Industrial tesla turbines may be used in hybrid cars or in commercial applications. Tesla s pumps and motors were unique in that they only used discs, and took advantage of the boundary layer effect. It introduces the operating principle of the tesla turbine, which was invented by engineer nikola tesla, a turbine. This analysis allows a parametric study of turbine performance based on several nondimensional parameters. Design and fabrication of cmscale tesla turbines eecs at. Additionally, a theory of tesla disc turbine by sengupta and guha 16 presented a hypothesis that would result in enhancing the good design and manufacture surface roughness of a tesla disc.
Naturally, the performance of tesla turbines has already been characterized by a number of researchers. Design and fabrication of cmscale tesla turbines by vedavalli gomatam krishnan a dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy in engineering electrical engineering and computer sciences in the graduate division of the university of california, berkeley committee in charge. Tesla maintains that in the turbine which forms the subjprt of this article, he has carried the steam and gas motor a long step forward toward the maximum attainable efficiency, both theoretical. There are a lot of factors geometry, pressure ratios, rpm that affect the efficiency of a turbomachine, but generally, tesla turbines perform poorly at high flow rates, most likely due to frictional losses. Ultraefficient bladeless wind turbine inspired by nikolai.
In order to construct a dynamometer, thermodynamic flow apparatus and future turbines, we modeled the tesla turbine using theoretical calculations and preliminary experiments. The tesla turbine is a bladeless centripetal flow turbine patented by nikola tesla in 19. In 19 nikola tesla patented a turbine without blades, that uses. Thus a series of experiments were run to determine stall torque and maximum run speed for a known. Tesla turbine torque modeling for construction of a dynamometer. Design and computational analysis of 1 kw tesla turbine. Tesla intended to use his turbine to propel aircraft, in geothermal power plants, in cars instead of pistons, for vacuum pumps, for compressing air and liquifying gases. In comparison with the first size, the tesla turbine can produce power output. The particularly good thing about tesla turbines is they are very easy to build. Jul 19, 2017 this tesla turbine design use 10inch saw blades with 200 teeth to build this 30 blade turbine.
The theoretical stall torque models were then applied to the new tesla turbine design. Jun 01, 2015 a practical design tool is also offered, which inputs user specifications on head, flow, particulate size, and medium to generate a list of possible turbine designs along with a recommendation for four candidate designs. Study and design of bladeless tesla turbine 883 also be achieved with protuberances which are raised in the plates by blows or pressure. Theoretical and experimental research performed on the tesla. Tesla disc turbine and a flexible test rig have been designed and manufactured, and experimental results are presented. Previous work tesla turbine was patented by nikola tesla in 1903. This reference book emphasizes fundamental principles and construction guidelines for enclosed rotators and contains at. Teslas design attempted to sidestep the key drawbacks of the bladed axial.
Results of the models show that the vortex model sets. Khan ebook covers theory and design of turbomachines with procedures and workedout solved examples. Many experiments have conducted using tesla turbines for various applications such as steam turbines, turbo for automobiles. The necessary disks spacings are nearly reasonable.
A preliminary design of a tesla turbine for pico hydro applications has been undertaken employing rices analytical method. Theory and performance of tesla turbines by vincent domenic romanin a dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy in engineering mechanical engineering in the graduate division of the university of california, berkeley committee in charge. Our tesla turbine design and associated other innovations represent the ideal economical and efficient way to convert the ecat heat into electricity. May 07, 2010 the bladeless wind turbine is completely enclosed in a relatively small compact unit. Obviously the tesla turbine and other innovations products can be sold on the open market and have dozens of other uses and a huge potential for commercialization. In the current work, a background discussion introducing the tesla turbine theory, merits. Tesla turbine torque modeling for construction of a.
Teslas discoveries, and to david hatcher childress, the publisher of gerrys book, for giving me unusually wide latitude in quoting large sections of this book. Nikola tesla was born an ethnic serb in the village smiljan, lika county, in the austrian empire present day croatia, on 10 july o. This tesla turbine design use 10inch saw blades with 200 teeth to build this 30 blade turbine. Turbomachinery design and theory mechanical engineering by rama s. The tesla turbine is also known as the boundarylayer turbine, cohesiontype turbine, and prandtllayer turbine after ludwig prandtl because it uses the boundarylayer effect and not a fluid impinging upon the blades as in a conventional turbine. In comparison, a bladed turbine design uses pressure forces from the fluid on the blades to turn them, not frictional forces. The tesla steam turbine scientific american september 30th, 1911 tesla s new monarch of machines new york herald oct. Gas turbine theory cohen solution manual is the pdf of the book. In the second patent, tesla modified the basic design so it would work as a turbine. Pdf optimization of tesla turbine using computational fluid. In this section, an examination of teslas design, subsequent works, and the theory behind it will.
This, more than anything, prevented the tesla turbine from becoming more widely used. The top half of casings is removed, showing two rotors. Teslas design of turbines is the topic of this seminar. The tesla turbine testing plant at the edison waterside station, new york.
The tesla turbine is made of acrylic and aluminium. Solaraero recently unveiled a new bladeless wind turbine that offers several advantages over current wind turbines it emits hardly any noise in operation, has few moving parts, and since it. Pdf development of tesla turbine for green energy applications. In addition, thermodynamics theory on isentropic efficiency proved to be a. Teslas design attempted to sidestep the key drawbacks of the bladed axial turbines, and even the lowest. Fluid entering through the inlets spirals inwards between disks, transferring power to the rotor shaft. Design, construction and testing of a tesla turbine. The theory of operation of a tesla turbine relies on boundary layer effects, which makes for good efficiency for the tesla turbine. The tesla turbine design was one that really was far ahead of its time, outstripping the available materials capabilities as it did.
This paper offers a fundamental ideal to design household green energy generator based on the concept of tesla turbine. The critical issue of this green energy generator is converting energy store. Tesla turbine cold steam engine theory 100% efficiency as claimed by nikola tesla. While conventional turbines have been extensively researched and tested, tesla and boundary layer type turbines have not. Design, simulation of fluid flow and optimization of operational. Tesla turbine, mathematical model, rotor efficiency. Around the year 1900 nikola tesla, the inventor of the alternating current motor, developed a different kind of steam turbine. If you really want to be smarter, reading can be one of the lots ways to evoke and realize. The bladeless tesla turbine, volume ii, tesla technology series. With disks close enough, there is no fundamental reason for its torque to be worse than a good bladed turbine. Numerical calculations of flow in several tesla turbine models were performed for a range of design parameters.
Instead of using windpowered blades to rotate a shaft and generator, the tesla inspired design consists of an. In operation, a tesla turbine is simply a turbomachine which is reasonably efficient at a fairly high rotational speed, dependent on several factors, including gap between the discs and disc diameter, but not too efficient to get moving. The efficiency of the preliminary turbine design was near 80% but it is believed that. As a result of this model work, a new tesla turbine of different dimensions was designed to adjust for flaws in the experimental turbine. A new advance in tesla turbine theory nikola tesla. Design, simulation of fluid flow and optimization of. Pdf this paper aims to study and design of organic rankine cycle orc. This tesla cd turbine is based on the tesla turbine, which was invented by nikola tesla in the early 1900s. Pdf this paper offers a fundamental ideal to design household green energy generator based on the concept of tesla turbine.
Brook, smithells metals reference books, 7th edition 1992. Theory and performance of tesla turbines by vincent domenic. Tesla turbine boundary layer sheartorque bladeless test rig. Barriers to tesla turbine commercialization howstuffworks. I also reserve the right to use in future works such as articles or books all or. Many people who like reading will have more knowledge and experiences. It had no blades or buckets but only smooth disk closely spaced on the rotor shaft. The steam enters at the periphery, and flows in spiral paths to exhaust at the center of the disks. Pdf a study on performance comparison of twosize tesla. The desire that guides me in all i do is the desire to harness the forces of nature to the service of mankind. Rices 2 analysis was among the first, and claims that turbines can be made up to 90% efficient. The tesla turbine is abandoned except in some niches because of its bad efficiency. In the first patent, tesla introduced his basic bladeless design configured as a pump or compressor. Tesla turbine was designed to use fluids as motive agents to rotate the rotors.
To the late bruce depalma, for teaching me how to think about physics the wa y things really are. Notice that there are no blades whatsoever parallel, closely spaced discs. It is found to be useful in low power applications but lacks in performance in high power applications 8. After the optimization, we observed that the tesla turbine design yields torque of 0. His father, milutin tesla 18191879, was an eastern orthodox priest. The bladeless wind turbine is completely enclosed in a relatively small compact unit. The pros and cons of tesla turbines are discussed in this article, as are those of the tesla pump. Instead of using windpowered blades to rotate a shaft and generator, the teslainspired design consists of. This document summarizes the development of an integral perturbation solution of the equations governing momentum transport in microchannels between disks of multipledisk drag turbines such as the tesla turbine.
Analysis of this type of flow problem is a key element in the optimal design of tesla dragtype turbines for geothermal, waste heat, energy harvesting, or solar. At the lowhead and lowflow region, the tesla cmscale turbine operating range is superimposed. Discs have to be as thin as possible, to preventturbulenceatdiscedges. Each rotor consists of 25 disks 38inch thick by 18 inch diameter. It was invented and patented by nikola tesla on the 21st october 1909 at the united states patent office from experiments done in england. Tesla turbine, an unconventional coaxial multipledisk turbine utilizing a. Tesla turbine design and the theory of operation of an. An analysis of the performance and efficiency of the disc turbine is carried out. The investigation yielded a design capable of generating 300 w under conditions of 20 m head and 2. And finally, with the third patent, he made the changes necessary to operate the turbine as an internal combustion engine. The design of a 1 kw tesla turbine was carried using iterative process for head and discharge for main dimensions of the turbine. In this paper,the development is carried out to determine disc size, disk gap and number of disc base on theoretical calculation of tesla turbine.
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