Tesla Turbine Running

This is a short video of my Tesla Turbine running. The turbine is designed to be buildable by the amateur.

Many operational parameters e.g. air injector angle, hole size, hole shape, numer of holes, number of discs and disc gap are all user modifiable so that the turbine can be used for serious research.

A primary consideration in the design is to keep the cost down. For this reason the discs are made from standard CDs, the body is acrylic and the bearings are standard skate bearings.

Using acrylic for the body allows it to be made using a paper pattern, a hacksaw and a file. The turbine housing (the round bit) is a 3" section of off-the-shelf 127mm OD acrylic tube. A plastics merchant will sell you the 5mm acrylic sheet and will sell you the tube cut to size.

Alternatively the end plates could be made from 5mm plywood.

"A common experimental platform"

Lots of people have built Tesla turbines and many have performed their own experiments.

They all built turbines to various designs, some of their own devising.

My idea is to standardise on one design which is based on a cheap, commonly available standard disc, namely, the humble CD.

It will then be possible for experimentors to compare like with like and discover and share sucessfull modifications.

Downloadable plans, a photo/video build log of this turbine and a users forum will be hosted on www.tesla-turbines.com soon.

Cheers,

Wilson.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Tesla
• Turbine
• Experiment
• DIY
• Bladeless
• Jet
• Engine
• Nikola
• High
• speed

[MrCoolguy6273]

possible to put in a car?

[evildrome]

Theoretically possible. There are efficiency issues with air flow after the blade stage which remain to be solved.

[heavym3tal]

what is the gap length between discs?

[evildrome]

Its 1.2mm but that might be a bit big for air as a working fluid. Ideally the gap should be slightly less than the boundary layer thickness for the given fluid at the working speed and pressure.

[heavym3tal]

see if you can get your gap to ~.73 mm. It should greatly improve your efficiency, assuming air's kinematic viscocity at standard temperature and pressure.

[evildrome]

Remembering of course that running pressure might be up to 120psi and 60 deg c. Also, pressure drops as the air approaches the centre, just to add insult to injury.

[TheGlobalOdyssey]

Why does everybody who makes these turbines feed the flow backwards, the important bit, where the power is, is at the center, yet the air flow has lost most of its power by the time it reaches the center when configured this way round. Beautiful construction a pleasure to behold!!!

[happgecko]

i made somthing simlar to this and it wouldnt work the cds would bounce back anf forth but i think got that figured out now also im using steam to power it would that have any bearin on it spining

[killafag2day]

tesla was the man

[heavym3tal]

eh...best I can do since I don't have any tables for kinematic viscosity of substances...