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. The theoretical stall torque models were then applied to the new tesla turbine design. 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. The critical issue of this green energy generator is converting energy store.
Khan ebook covers theory and design of turbomachines with procedures and workedout solved examples. Results of the models show that the vortex model sets. Tesla turbine boundary layer sheartorque bladeless test rig. In the current work, a background discussion introducing the tesla turbine theory, merits.
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. A preliminary design of a tesla turbine for pico hydro applications has been undertaken employing rices analytical method. Previous work tesla turbine was patented by nikola tesla in 1903. In comparison, a bladed turbine design uses pressure forces from the fluid on the blades to turn them, not frictional forces. Tesla disc turbine and a flexible test rig have been designed and manufactured, and experimental results are presented. In the second patent, tesla modified the basic design so it would work as a 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. Nikola tesla was born an ethnic serb in the village smiljan, lika county, in the austrian empire present day croatia, on 10 july o. Teslas design attempted to sidestep the key drawbacks of the bladed axial turbines, and even the lowest. Many experiments have conducted using tesla turbines for various applications such as steam turbines, turbo for automobiles. At the lowhead and lowflow region, the tesla cmscale turbine operating range is superimposed. This tesla turbine design use 10inch saw blades with 200 teeth to build this 30 blade turbine.
The tesla turbine is a bladeless centripetal flow turbine patented by nikola tesla in 19. 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. The top half of casings is removed, showing two rotors. Discs have to be as thin as possible, to preventturbulenceatdiscedges. 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. The tesla turbine design was one that really was far ahead of its time, outstripping the available materials capabilities as it did. This reference book emphasizes fundamental principles and construction guidelines for enclosed rotators and contains at. The efficiency of the preliminary turbine design was near 80% but it is believed that. 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. 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.
Teslas design of turbines is the topic of this seminar. Naturally, the performance of tesla turbines has already been characterized by a number of researchers. Design and computational analysis of 1 kw tesla turbine. 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. I also reserve the right to use in future works such as articles or books all or. The bladeless tesla turbine, volume ii, tesla technology series. Tesla turbine torque modeling for construction of a. Pdf development of tesla turbine for green energy applications.
Our tesla turbine design and associated other innovations represent the ideal economical and efficient way to convert the ecat heat into electricity. 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. Tesla turbine cold steam engine theory 100% efficiency as claimed by nikola tesla. 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. Design, simulation of fluid flow and optimization of operational. Design analysis of tesla microturbine operating on a lowboiling. The tesla steam turbine scientific american september 30th, 1911 tesla s new monarch of machines new york herald oct.
It is found to be useful in low power applications but lacks in performance in high power applications 8. 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. Theory and performance of tesla turbines by vincent domenic. 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. Pdf optimization of tesla turbine using computational fluid.
If you really want to be smarter, reading can be one of the lots ways to evoke and realize. This, more than anything, prevented the tesla turbine from becoming more widely used. Study and design of bladeless tesla turbine 883 also be achieved with protuberances which are raised in the plates by blows or pressure. 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 turbine torque modeling for construction of a dynamometer. In this section, an examination of teslas design, subsequent works, and the theory behind it will. Design, construction and testing of a tesla turbine. In 19 nikola tesla patented a turbine without blades, that uses. A new advance in tesla turbine theory nikola tesla. The steam enters at the periphery, and flows in spiral paths to exhaust at the center of the disks. Many people who like reading will have more knowledge and experiences. In comparison with the first size, the tesla turbine can produce power output.
Gas turbine theory cohen solution manual is the pdf of the book. The tesla turbine is made of acrylic and aluminium. It introduces the operating principle of the tesla turbine, which was invented by engineer nikola tesla, a turbine. Fluid entering through the inlets spirals inwards between disks, transferring power to the rotor shaft. The design philosophy of the flexible test rig has been explained. An analysis of the performance and efficiency of the disc turbine is carried out. With disks close enough, there is no fundamental reason for its torque to be worse than a good bladed turbine. The theory of operation of a tesla turbine relies on boundary layer effects, which makes for good efficiency for the tesla turbine. Ultraefficient bladeless wind turbine inspired by nikolai.
A seminar on tesla turbines presented by souganth sugathan manjhiparambil isameme057 2. In order to construct a dynamometer, thermodynamic flow apparatus and future turbines, we modeled the tesla turbine using theoretical calculations and preliminary experiments. This tesla cd turbine is based on the tesla turbine, which was invented by nikola tesla in the early 1900s. Teslas design attempted to sidestep the key drawbacks of the bladed axial. The design of a 1 kw tesla turbine was carried using iterative process for head and discharge for main dimensions of the turbine. The particularly good thing about tesla turbines is they are very easy to build. Pdf this paper aims to study and design of organic rankine cycle orc. Tesla turbine design and the theory of operation of an. Design and fabrication of cmscale tesla turbines eecs at. 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. As a result of this model work, a new tesla turbine of different dimensions was designed to adjust for flaws in the experimental turbine. To the late bruce depalma, for teaching me how to think about physics the wa y things really are. Tesla turbine, mathematical model, rotor efficiency.
The tesla turbine testing plant at the edison waterside station, new york. Rices 2 analysis was among the first, and claims that turbines can be made up to 90% efficient. After the optimization, we observed that the tesla turbine design yields torque of 0. Instead of using windpowered blades to rotate a shaft and generator, the teslainspired design consists of. 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. Pdf this paper offers a fundamental ideal to design household green energy generator based on the concept of tesla turbine. The desire that guides me in all i do is the desire to harness the forces of nature to the service of mankind. Turbomachinery design and theory mechanical engineering by rama s.
May 07, 2010 the bladeless wind turbine is completely enclosed in a relatively small compact unit. This paper offers a fundamental ideal to design household green energy generator based on the concept of tesla turbine. Barriers to tesla turbine commercialization howstuffworks. Notice that there are no blades whatsoever parallel, closely spaced discs. Tesla turbine was designed to use fluids as motive agents to rotate the rotors. The tesla turbine is abandoned except in some niches because of its bad efficiency. The pros and cons of tesla turbines are discussed in this article, as are those of the tesla pump. The necessary disks spacings are nearly reasonable.
This analysis allows a parametric study of turbine performance based on several nondimensional parameters. Pdf a study on performance comparison of twosize tesla. Theoretical and experimental research performed on the tesla. In the first patent, tesla introduced his basic bladeless design configured as a pump or compressor.
Thus a series of experiments were run to determine stall torque and maximum run speed for a known. Instead of using windpowered blades to rotate a shaft and generator, the tesla inspired design consists of an. 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. The bladeless wind turbine is completely enclosed in a relatively small compact unit. His father, milutin tesla 18191879, was an eastern orthodox priest.
Brook, smithells metals reference books, 7th edition 1992. Jul 19, 2017 this tesla turbine design use 10inch saw blades with 200 teeth to build this 30 blade 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. 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. In addition, thermodynamics theory on isentropic efficiency proved to be a. It had no blades or buckets but only smooth disk closely spaced on the rotor shaft.