Paul and group,

In the interest of KISS principles would a Tesla turbine have enough
efficiency (torque) to make it worthwhile?? 

Dan

Hi Dan,

I stumbled to this Tesla turbine a year ago, first impression was it's
very simple and compact. But there's downsides:

- Very tight tolerances required, on white-hot exhaust temps.
- Low demonstrated efficiency (~45%)

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_turbine )

Tesla himself claimed that 90% will be reached with steam, but that has
not been verified with hardware.

It could be easier to make an educated guess of development potential if
 theoretical background could be found somewhere. Maybe there's thesis
work somewhere, i didn't dig very deep on this.

Personally, i would spend my imaginary million to radial flow disc
turbine with multiple, discreetly geared expansion stages collecting to
one axle. That could be very efficient. Stator could be single casting
and air cooling is easily arranged. Multiple, concentric rotors are more
tricky, but by no means _too_ difficult.

Cheers,

Petri

The Tesla Turbine couldn't be properly made with the metallurgy of 1900,
but today is a different story.

I have made small, open Tesla Turbines to demonstrate the concept.  The
reason that Tesla suggested steam as a "fuel" is because of the high
expansion rate, which will give more push than air will.

Another idea is to profile the discs, providing shallow slots for even
greater expansion then guiding the spent fuel overboard.

I always wanted to try one using hydrogen.

As far as torque, a tuned and properly running Tesla Turbine cranks tens
of thousands of RPM, so you need a reduction to turn that speed into
power.  This should bring torque up to a worthwhile level.

One all-in-one concept, which is waiting for an appropriate source of
electricity, is to crack water into H2 and O2, use the H2 to fuel a
Tesla Turbine and draw the O2 for breathing.  This takes a LOT of
electricity, but maybe someday fuel cells or storage will reach the
point where this can be tried.  Who knows, maybe we will someday cover
the tops of our wings with solar collectors and fly on water!

Keith Wood



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