It’s so funny, because this is possibly one of the best videos about Tesla turbines on the inter webs. SOOOO many people think they understand the Tesla turbine but just completely misunderstand this stuff. Thanks for sharing. Hope you got an A+.
@iggymydog D is the gap between the discs, and W is the angular velocity. If you want higher speeds, you need to decrease the disc gap (consistent with the fluids kinematic viscosity) in accordance with the equation: W= n*(pi/D)^2, where n = kinematic viscosity of the fluid
Carnot's Theorem applies to a theoretical heat engine. The more appropriate thermal cycle might be closer to a rankine or brayton cycle, if you include your working fluid. Also, depending on the type of flow (Laminar, Transistion, or Turbulent) you have over the discs will change your efficiency.
The answer to your question seems like an optimization problem, which would be interesting to find out. Also, the fluid properties of compressible flows (like gases) would require different disc gaps than that of incompressible flows (like liquids). I hope to eventually do some experimentation with the tesla turbine in the future and find out.
@givemetoast The boundary layer (in the case of the Tesla Turbine) that you should be concerned with is the laminar boundary layer, which means that you would limit your Reynold's number to 2300 or less (beyond that, your boundary layer transitions to turbulence, decreasing the efficiency of the turbine). Setting this limit, a preliminary approximation would be incompressible flow over a flat plate. Do this in 1-D, then set other boundary conditions to the problem to do a 2-D approximation.
@X02fighter If you use aluminum, you will have to limit the temperature of your working fluid about 100-200 deg below the melting point of Al, which is pretty low to begin with. If you could use a ceramic, you could increase your temperature up into the 1000-2000 deg regime. Don't forget that heat will diffuse through a solid from the hot end to the cold end.
@X02fighter dropping them yes, they will break/fracture. Unless your using non-industrial ceramic (dinner plates), they should hold up. I know tiles on the Space Shuttle were made from High Temperature ceramics, and I understand that they are experimenting with High Temp ceramics in jet turbines. The advantage of a Tesla Turbine lies in the fact that you can use low quality (non superheated) steam, while conventional turbines require high quality steam.
@dheiliger yes, this turbine can be used in reverse as a hydraulic pump. Tesla himself claimed greater than 90% efficiency, however, Dr. Warren Rice claimed that 97% efficiency could be attained with strictly laminar flow over the discs. His experiments yielded efficiencies between 30 and 40% i believe. I am not sure what you are referring to when you mention friction factor though?
Charlie Solis is showing *AMAZING* results with the Tesla turbines. Crazy amounts of surface area and very small disc spaces. Real power and torque outputs even at low RPMs!
@TheIdrake Absolutely go for it. Start with the design that Nikola Tesla started with (holes near the center), then adjust disc spacing depending of the working fluid that you are working with.
@mathayi2000 rough surfaces cause turbulence in a fluid flow. Turbulence causes an increase in entropy, thereby creating more energy losses in the system. With a smooth disc, most of the flow is laminar, and therefore less energy is lost to to irreversible changes in the system. Does this help? I can explain further if you wish...
@heavym3tal The reason I ask: I've been reading up on the use of supercritical CO2 as a working fluid in a closed externally heated Brayton cycle for high temperature gradient applications where steam turbines end up with a huge size requirement per watt. It may be fun to try subbing in laminar adhesion turbines for the compression / power stages, rather than regular reaction turbines.
@givemetoast Since there have been no in-depth experimentation on such details, the general rule of thumb for designing the disc holes is: 1) as close to the center as possible, and 2) as many as possible. This of course will be limited by the material that you make the discs out of, which should be VERY smooth, if possible.
@Fordi I would recommend you examine the Magnox and UNGG nuclear power plants. They used CO2 as the coolant, and you might be able to find information on the CO2 properties used in those setups. If you want any help with the mathematics of your design, I would be happy to lend a hand.
I am not sure which way the air exits the disc stack...however I believe that it depends on the rotational direction of the discs. Either way, yes, the air is ejected axially through the holes.
Nice presentation. You covered all of the major points quite well. FYI, my newest version of the Tesla Turbine has achieved 82-84 percent efficiency. Our next version, we expect to be in the mid 90's.
The air is pulled when the turbine is used as a compressor. The direction is along a spiral path that starts at the edge of the disc and ends at the holes in the center. I believe that a freefloating magnetic bearing could help with the turbine.
You are mistaken. You said at higher speeds the air particles travel straight to the exhaust but that is not true. At higher speeds the air particles take a longer path before exiting at the exhaust. The air particle makes more revolutions and form a tighter and even fuller spiral. therefore there is more particle-disk contact and more efficiency at higher speeds.
Melvin Bradley van Os friction, air that contacts the turbine impeller is bound to it via friction, that is the boundary layer, additional air moves across this boundary layer not the impeller/disc, how it behaves is relevant to the viscosity and clearance in between discs, the surface texture, and clearance between discs and internal housing surface, there has to be enough space to allow for adequate surface layers, and still optimize the mechanical energy of the high pressure incoming air (heats up) low pressure exhaust air, cools down as it exits the port creating the vacuum that causes the phenomenon that increases the efficiency of the turbine to an incredibly close ratio 0.7 : 1, (I’ve L seen demonstrated) or better, the PHD Professor (demo guy) said i can’t remember his name I had no interest at the time other than how to convert it into a turbo unit
No he was correct. The highest efficiency happens when there is the least amount of slip on the discs. Ie, they make the least amount of spirals around the face of discs. When you spin them fast they make many spirals around with the discs inside the case while not sliding far across the face of the discs.
Charlie solis is designing Tesla turbines around this principle and they actually work. Real power and torque even at low rpm. Tesla NEVER says to spin it fast as a turbine. He says to do that when using it as a pump… because ALL centrifugal pumps performance is tip speed dependent. But he never says to spin the turbine fast to get high efficiency. What he does say for increasing the economy is to increase the surface area and decrease the disc spacing. Charlie solis has added that you can change the surface adhesion properties like using hydroPHILLIC coatings to increase the boundary layer width but that’s a whole other discussion. But Tesla is directly quoted as saying: “Owing to a number of causes affecting the performance, it is difficult to frame a precise rule which would be generally applicable, but it may be stated that within certain limits, and other conditions being the same, the torque is directly proportionate to the square of the velocity of the fluid relatively to the runner and to the effective area of the disks and, inversely, to the distance separating them. The machine will, generally, perform its maximum work when the effective speed of the runner is one-half of that of the fluid; but to attain the highest economy, the relative speed or slip, for any given performance, should be as small as possible. This condition may be to any desired degree approximated by increasing the active area of and reducing the space between the disks.”
@TheIdrake absolutely! i wanna try to make one, but actually im looking to make it as a pump... like heavymetal said, start with the original and go from there...If you can get your hands on matlab and maybe an engineering professor to help with the code if your not familiar or good with matlab you can design a nice machine. Matlab will let you simulate the turbine and change small parameters like disk diameter, thickness, spacing between them, hole size and you can find a good design!
A lot of Tesla Turbines that I see on youtube have disk spacing that is way too large for the fluid they are using (typically) air. If they use fractions of a millimeter for their spacing, the efficiency should increase.
@givemetoast you might want to look at some fluid mechanics books for information on that, but it depends on the fluid. You would want a very, VERY smooth pipe entering the inlet, but one that is not too long, as the boundary layer will transition to turbulent flow. I know that you are designing it, but I could be more help if you give me some information, or let me know the dimensions, and I will try and point you into the right areas.
really nice explanation! I have 1 doubt: You mention that the disk surfaces should be as smooth as possible. I was under the assumption that telsa turbine is a friction based pump and therefore the rougher the disk surfaces the more energy is transferred to the rotating disk. To what extent am I off with this assumption?
@Fordi Unfortuantely no. I have seen no documentation to that. I have heard of the Turbines being used as pumps, but no commericial application of both a turbine and pump.
@xaviour39 Well technically it doesn't produce any energy. It extracts it from a working fluid. Now the amount of energy extracted depends on the efficiency of the engine in question. The highest experimental efficiency for a single stage Tesla Turbine has been about 35-40%. Theoretically, if you have laminar fluid flow over the surface, then you can achieve efficiencies in excess of 95%.
@heavym3tal Many modern turbines use both reaction and impulse principles. If the working fluid is compressible the reaction turbine is slightly more efficient at the cost of complexity. The famous Parsons ship turbine is a reaction type. The earliest Reaction turbine is the Aeolipile or Hero's engine, a very simple device.
Nikola Tesla actually has a patent for a hybrid parsons and Tesla turbine. It’s patent GB 174,544. It’s specifically for ship use to be able to get the highest economies in what you just explained.
@SvenOkonomi Nikola Tesla developed this turbine in the early 1900s, since it overcame a lot of the complexity of traditional bladed turbines. Personally, I think since more time and money has been spent studying bladed turbine design, those are the types that are most common. Tesla Turbines on the other hand have not been experimented and developed enough.
Its like saying that you could use another fluid to do the same thing. a fluid that doesnt mix readily with another fluid also being forced through the container- where one fluid representing the air, could pass through the turbine without turning it if it was at low enough pressures, but the other fluid representing air creating higher pressures against the surfaces and container would make it spin.
@008klm the reason that the most of the fluid would fly off the turbine is due to the formation of boundary layers over a surface from fluid mechanics. i suppose that you could control the angular velocity using the method u mentioned, but I think it would be simpler to vary the flow into the turbine.
I would assume that the pressure difference between the entrance and exit of the turbine is greater than the rotational force experienced by the fluid as it travels toward the enter. Centripetal force is defined as: F = (m*v^2)/r, therefore, for a unit of fluid mass, the only variables that change the force on that mass are it's linear speed and the radial distance from the center to the circular path.
John Matthews was not answered. Charles Coulomb whom Tesla admired discovered that the smoother the surface a solid body has the greater the contact a moving fluid has on that body. Coulomb was not only a genius in elctro-magentism, but in tribology (science of friction) as well. he is referred to as the father of tribology. Ludwig Prandtl proponet of the boundary layer
@mathayi2000 Is not based on friction but in superficial forces of fluids, the same principle when you put water between 2 CDs and are hard to separate them.
Thank you very much for this wonderful explanation. I was thinking to run a Tesla turbine at very high speeds and use gears to slow it down and gain considerable torque to run a large Dynamo/Generator.
I've been a fan of Tesla Turbines for years. My paper model turbine is shown operating here on UA-cam. I'm glad that Superman's son was able to take time to explain it's working to the people of Earth. Is anybody out there going to use a Tesla Turbine in a car/scooter that runs on compressed air?
@heavym3tal right that makes perfect sense but isn't ceramic fragile? I'm afraid that using ceramic discs might cause them to break or fracture if the revolutions per second get too high or if someone accidently drops it on the ground
Years ago I read an article that said, a jet engine based on the tesla pump would get 3 times the thrust per pound of fuel. How would you design a tesla pump to work as a jet engine?
Nicola Tesla’s valvular conduit patent specifically refers to using the turbine and valve as a pulsed deflagration combustion engine. Also his patent GB 186,083, improved steam + combustion turbine patent that he patented 10 years after the original, can be run both continuous flame jet or in a pulsed deflagration or even pulsed detonation mode.
@dheiliger Not sure. Power plants are kinda complex systems to construct...but I'll be more than happy to help you design one with this type of turbine.
You said that lightweight yet smooth discs would help increase performance of a tesla turbine. Would aluminum discs work or should you try something a little heavier bcuz I'm think that a prolonged use of the turbine would cause it give off lots of heat
Look at the vortex air gun. A tube closed at both ends. One end has exhaust ports at the edge. The other a hole in the middle.If you introduce air in the middle. So it spins at high speed. The hot air moves to the outside where the air is faster & the cold low energy air to the slow center. In the tesla turbine. The gases drag on the disk by means of viscosity and the adhesion of the surface layer of the gas. As the gas slows and adds energy to the disks, it spirals into the center exhaust.
At what scale do you think this breaks down? Could materials be engineered such that electrons would flow in a similar manner? Small currents produce increasingly larger magnetic field or something.
Guys i have 2 questions. First - is it possible to construct such turbine in SolidWorks and to be calculated (simulated) successfully ? Secondly - you probably remember Mercedes SLR with it's turbine wheels. So - is it possible to use Tesla's turbine for that issue - to suck the air out of the clearance and to blow it outward ? The same like SLR's turbines ? Thank you!
@slanw probably, but you would have to put in a correct gear ratio to that the power of the turbine can be transferred into enough torque to move the car.
What do we do with the result from the Boundry Layer equation? What does it represent physically? Also, what is the difference between the Relative Flow Vel (Va) and the Inlet Vel (U)?
The discs spin based on the the idea that at the boundary layer there is greater shear. How would this work if I were to pump a shear thinning fluid in (ie. Drilling Fluid)? Would the drilling fluid begin to thin due the the shear thinning effect and not spin the discs any more?
This is just what I was looking for! Thank you! Question tho. How do I optimize the efficiency of the airstream; that is, the shape and angle of the airflow entering the disk? Are there formulas for air shape (flat or round), thickness and angle?
Do you know of any previous attempts to use a tesla turbine in a closed cycle (i.e., using two turbines, one as pump; hot on one join, cold on the other)?
or what about a vaccuum? running it in a vaccuum/ low atmospheric conditions...you could use some other gas other than air, something super light, and still get the thing to spin... but looking back at your post- i can see you were just referring to the direction of the flow... it has nothing to do with my longwinded replies! good presentation.
+Harout Bulbulian the working speed is the desired result. These things will operate at 150000 rpm. They don't produce much torque so depending on what you are trying to accomplish you would base your design on what work you wanted it to perform.
@maco10810 I'm not sure I can help you with your paintball gun design, but if you have a specific question on the aerodynamics of the tesla turbine discs that is unanswered here, reading about the boundary layer in a fluid dynamics book would be more helpful than myself probably.
It seems like the disk gap for air at 70 deg f going 1k rpm would be .004 inches, or did I figure that wrong? If so it seems like it would be hard to pump very much volume. Any insight would be helpful.
Somehow at some point something doesn't convince me. When you say there's a "straight spiral" towards the center, it means it doesn't still cover the entire surface and is still rotating at low speed. What probably happens in that Fibonacci spiral is only a pressure wave, and since there are two opposite forces of a fluid pushed from the outside to the inner outlet and the same fluid pushed by the disk towards the periphery, one is centripetal and the other centrifugal, the maximum efficiency is obtained when there's a perfect resonance between these forces.
2:28 Wrong. The air spirals tighter, meaning it goes around the disk more times, thus increasing friction with the disk because the path traveled is longer. You got it the wrong way round.
Sorry you are mistaken. Efficiency is maximized when slip is decreased. Listen to Tesla’s own words… “Owing to a number of causes affecting the performance, it is difficult to frame a precise rule which would be generally applicable, but it may be stated that within certain limits, and other conditions being the same, the torque is directly proportionate to the square of the velocity of the fluid relatively to the runner and to the effective area of the disks and, inversely, to the distance separating them. The machine will, generally, perform its maximum work when the effective speed of the runner is one-half of that of the fluid; but to attain the highest economy, the relative speed or slip, for any given performance, should be as small as possible. This condition may be to any desired degree approximated by increasing the active area of and reducing the space between the disks.” -Nikola Tesla The fluid should slip the least on the disc faces, but should make as many turns with the disc as possible. So the force on the discs happens through a long rotational distance which is by definition Work Done but since there is the least slip and laminar flow regimes that work is done at the highest efficiency.
The TesTur is NOT a mechanical turbine in any shape or form. Because all molecular adhesion and internal viscous forces within a fluid are governed by electron orbital interactions, this makes the TesTur a purely electronic interaction turbine. The BIGGEST misconception about the Tesla Turbine that most people get wrong is that they think the fluid is actually sliding and dragging on the disc, similar to as if a solid object was “sliding” across the surface of another solid object. It is not. Full Stop. The fluid that’s just off the surface of the disc face is ALWAYS statically adhered to said disc face and never moving relative to the disc. The torque to the disc comes from shear stress forces within the motive fluid trying to move through itself. The shear force is transferred through the motive fluid itself to the layer of fluid that is statically adhered to the disc faces, and then through the virtue of molecular adhesion the discs are pulled along with it, or Vice versa the discs pull the fluid along with it. The only “friction” involved in this is that of internal friction within the fluid against moving through itself, ie viscous forces. This is not a mechanical turbine in any shape or form. Since all molecular adhesion and internal viscous forces within a fluid are governed by electron orbital interactions, this makes the Tesla turbine a purely electronic turbine. As Tesla even alludes to in the article “Dr. Tesla Talks Of Gas Turbines” … “I have been working at this a long time. Many years ago I invented a pump for pumping mercury. Just a plain disk, like this, and it would work very well. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘that is friction.’ But one day I thought it out, and I thought, ‘No, that is not friction, it is something else. The particles are not always sliding by the disk, but some of them at least are carried along with it. Therefore it cannot be friction. It must be adhesion.’ And that, you see, was the real beginning. “For if you can imagine a wheel rotating in a medium, whether the fluid is receiving or imparting energy, and moving at nearly the same velocity as the fluid, then you have a minimum of friction, you get little or no ‘slip.’ Then you are getting something very different from friction; you are making use of adhesion alone. It’s all so simple, so very simple. “This is the greatest of my inventions,”…… -Nikola Tesla (September 18th, 1911) When designed correctly, it works principally upon electron interactions between the fluid and itself and the fluid and the disc material. The first important factor being how well does the fluid actually molecularly adhere to the disc faces when submerged in an atmosphere of the motive fluid. This is also seen as the “Wetting angle” when there are two fluids in contact with the surface and they are competing for adherence. Think hydrophobic and hydroPHILLIC surface treatments. The second important factor is the viscosity of the motive fluid in question, as it represents the fluids ability to “flow through itself with or without resistance” per se. Herein lies the reason it is extremely important to maintain laminar flow regimes within the disc spaces. Because irrelevant of the viscosity of the fluid, ALL FLUIDS, liquids and gases, can be forced to flow in highly efficient low Reynolds number laminar flow regimes given the right initial conditions and “flow cavity” parameters, such that turbulent boundary layer slip is eliminated, stream separation and counterflow is eliminated, rapid pressure changes from turbulence resulting in noise losses that can lead to early fatigue on discs and parts is eliminated, etc. Furthermore, because windage is all but inexistent in the Tesla Turbine, it stands to potentially be the quietest running turbine ever when properly designed. (Sidebar: This is why I have speculated over the years that these Tesla turbines have actually covertly been in practicable use all this time in things like covert/stealth submarine Primary Power Units (PPUs) and/or just plain stealth “trolling motors” but that’s honestly my own sheer educated speculation at this point. 🤷♂️ it just makes sense.) This is where working out the complex solutions in the Naviar-stokes equations come in for designing practicable machines.
my question is if we can acheive such an efficiency how much heat will be produced and will the turbine be able to handle it? i saw another video that the turbine litterally melted itself apart. also will there be an efficiency loss moving from the turbine energy produced to mechanical energy such as if it were used to mill grain?
@maco10810 Its not so much to help fuel mix with the air, but more so to reduce heat. Polished surfaces retain much more heat, and we want our exhausts ports to hold as much heat in as possible in order to increase velocity. Rougher inlet ports promote cooling of the intake charge as there is more surface area to flow over. Turbulent airflow is never good, thats why intake ports are still smooth just not polished.
I am very curious as to utilizing a tesla turbine design in supplement to a IC engine in a vehicle. Though to compete with current blade technology, it will have to manage at least 80% efficiency while spinning well over 100,000rpm.
"Once you get to a point where the angular velocity of the disks is very great then you have a tight spiral that just goes straight to the center" - 2:25 (look at the picture) Hmmm... I have heard from other sources that you get a more convoluted spiral at higher angular velocities. Which claim is true? No matter which one is true an explination would be nice.
This guy doesn't really understand what he is talking about. The whole discussion about it spiraling towards the center is incorrect, and rather obviously incorrect too.
Sam Ruby According to Jeffery Hayes, you get the most inefficient when it goes straight to the middle. Either the guy in the video screwed up during the speech, or it was a real mistake.
He describes a tight spiral towards the center at high angular velocities. In fact, the opposite is true. At higher angular velocities, the propelling liquid or gas would actually be forced towards the periphery of the disk, not accelerated towards the center.
Sam Ruby Right, but the escape hole is in the center and thus the fluid has to move towards the center - this results in a great force of adhesion of the working fluid to the disk.
Sam Ruby Hey Sam, I happened to have a Tesla Turbine prototype. We use 0.5 disk gap so around 0.019 inch. We use 27 disk and we're about to build the inlet nozzle. If you are curious you can check out the channel.
in other words it is nothing but that a water pump invested and works with air or water compresed, each disc multiplies the drag the water cause flowing through and cause a vortex in the cylinder increasing the power exponentially
How might you make one of these with torque to be able to turn a rod/shaft. I have been thinking of tesla turbines powerd by steam to charge battery's, so how would you create the torque for something like an alternator
+Stephen Redmond from what I've studied so far on these tesla turbines the way to increase torque is to increase disc size and number and as the video mentions reduce spacing of the discs accordingly. The problem is how people are discussing what efficiency is. I think it has an extremely high mechanical efficiency. However this does not mean electrical efficiency. As he says in the video the you will get greater efficiency at higher speeds...to a certain point. Commonly these are tested at way too low of rpms to get good results. And as he says it doesn't produce a lot of power. Fins will increase torque but drastically lower efficiency at the higher rpms. So for this device it's better to increase the disc size which will lower the rpms producing more torque but maintaining higher mechanical efficiency.
Charlie Solis makes actual working Tesla turbines that output real power and torque even at low RPMs. You have to increase the surface area and decrease the disc spacing to reduce slip.
I don't think you understand the 2nd law of Thermodynamics, Thermal Power Cycles, or even Carnot's theory on heat engines. Carnot never set a thermodynamic efficiency limit on a particular type of engine. He simply stated that you can never produce an engine that has a thermal efficiency of 100%, meaning that there are no losses converting thermal energy to mechanical energy. An efficiency of 90% is possible theoretically, but experimentally it is unproven.
@complexjel2002 If you increase the efficiency of the device that converts heat into mechanical or electrical energy, then obviously you can reduce emissions for electrical generation.
@Kenzofeis If I get the chance to do more research with the tesla turbine, I would like to change the shape of the disc edges to airfoils, or maybe a parabolic shape. However, I do not know the outcome. If you get the chance please inform me of any progress :)
It’s so funny, because this is possibly one of the best videos about Tesla turbines on the inter webs. SOOOO many people think they understand the Tesla turbine but just completely misunderstand this stuff. Thanks for sharing. Hope you got an A+.
@iggymydog D is the gap between the discs, and W is the angular velocity. If you want higher speeds, you need to decrease the disc gap (consistent with the fluids kinematic viscosity) in accordance with the equation:
W= n*(pi/D)^2, where n = kinematic viscosity of the fluid
Awesome work man! Hands down the BEST Tesla turbine video on all of UA-cam. 👏👏👏
Carnot's Theorem applies to a theoretical heat engine. The more appropriate thermal cycle might be closer to a rankine or brayton cycle, if you include your working fluid. Also, depending on the type of flow (Laminar, Transistion, or Turbulent) you have over the discs will change your efficiency.
The answer to your question seems like an optimization problem, which would be interesting to find out. Also, the fluid properties of compressible flows (like gases) would require different disc gaps than that of incompressible flows (like liquids). I hope to eventually do some experimentation with the tesla turbine in the future and find out.
@givemetoast The boundary layer (in the case of the Tesla Turbine) that you should be concerned with is the laminar boundary layer, which means that you would limit your Reynold's number to 2300 or less (beyond that, your boundary layer transitions to turbulence, decreasing the efficiency of the turbine). Setting this limit, a preliminary approximation would be incompressible flow over a flat plate. Do this in 1-D, then set other boundary conditions to the problem to do a 2-D approximation.
@X02fighter If you use aluminum, you will have to limit the temperature of your working fluid about 100-200 deg below the melting point of Al, which is pretty low to begin with. If you could use a ceramic, you could increase your temperature up into the 1000-2000 deg regime. Don't forget that heat will diffuse through a solid from the hot end to the cold end.
@X02fighter dropping them yes, they will break/fracture. Unless your using non-industrial ceramic (dinner plates), they should hold up. I know tiles on the Space Shuttle were made from High Temperature ceramics, and I understand that they are experimenting with High Temp ceramics in jet turbines. The advantage of a Tesla Turbine lies in the fact that you can use low quality (non superheated) steam, while conventional turbines require high quality steam.
@dheiliger yes, this turbine can be used in reverse as a hydraulic pump. Tesla himself claimed greater than 90% efficiency, however, Dr. Warren Rice claimed that 97% efficiency could be attained with strictly laminar flow over the discs. His experiments yielded efficiencies between 30 and 40% i believe.
I am not sure what you are referring to when you mention friction factor though?
Charlie Solis is showing *AMAZING* results with the Tesla turbines. Crazy amounts of surface area and very small disc spaces. Real power and torque outputs even at low RPMs!
@TheIdrake Absolutely go for it. Start with the design that Nikola Tesla started with (holes near the center), then adjust disc spacing depending of the working fluid that you are working with.
@mathayi2000 rough surfaces cause turbulence in a fluid flow. Turbulence causes an increase in entropy, thereby creating more energy losses in the system. With a smooth disc, most of the flow is laminar, and therefore less energy is lost to to irreversible changes in the system. Does this help? I can explain further if you wish...
@heavym3tal
The reason I ask: I've been reading up on the use of supercritical CO2 as a working fluid in a closed externally heated Brayton cycle for high temperature gradient applications where steam turbines end up with a huge size requirement per watt.
It may be fun to try subbing in laminar adhesion turbines for the compression / power stages, rather than regular reaction turbines.
@givemetoast Since there have been no in-depth experimentation on such details, the general rule of thumb for designing the disc holes is: 1) as close to the center as possible, and 2) as many as possible. This of course will be limited by the material that you make the discs out of, which should be VERY smooth, if possible.
@Fordi I would recommend you examine the Magnox and UNGG nuclear power plants. They used CO2 as the coolant, and you might be able to find information on the CO2 properties used in those setups. If you want any help with the mathematics of your design, I would be happy to lend a hand.
This was a very very good explanation mate....well done 10/10.
I am not sure which way the air exits the disc stack...however I believe that it depends on the rotational direction of the discs. Either way, yes, the air is ejected axially through the holes.
Nice presentation. You covered all of the major points quite well. FYI, my newest version of the Tesla Turbine has achieved 82-84 percent efficiency. Our next version, we expect to be in the mid 90's.
Yoo where are you at these days Frank?
The air is pulled when the turbine is used as a compressor. The direction is along a spiral path that starts at the edge of the disc and ends at the holes in the center. I believe that a freefloating magnetic bearing could help with the turbine.
You are mistaken. You said at higher speeds the air particles travel straight to the exhaust but that is not true. At higher speeds the air particles take a longer path before exiting at the exhaust. The air particle makes more revolutions and form a tighter and even fuller spiral. therefore there is more particle-disk contact and more efficiency at higher speeds.
I made that statement based on documentation available at the time. Can you show the documentation that you are referencing in your comment.
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Melvin Bradley van Os friction, air that contacts the turbine impeller is bound to it via friction, that is the boundary layer, additional air moves across this boundary layer not the impeller/disc, how it behaves is relevant to the viscosity and clearance in between discs, the surface texture, and clearance between discs and internal housing surface, there has to be enough space to allow for adequate surface layers, and still optimize the mechanical energy of the high pressure incoming air (heats up) low pressure exhaust air, cools down as it exits the port creating the vacuum that causes the phenomenon that increases the efficiency of the turbine to an incredibly close ratio 0.7 : 1, (I’ve
L
seen demonstrated) or better, the PHD Professor (demo guy) said i can’t remember his name I had no interest at the time other than how to convert it into a turbo unit
No he was correct. The highest efficiency happens when there is the least amount of slip on the discs. Ie, they make the least amount of spirals around the face of discs. When you spin them fast they make many spirals around with the discs inside the case while not sliding far across the face of the discs.
Charlie solis is designing Tesla turbines around this principle and they actually work. Real power and torque even at low rpm. Tesla NEVER says to spin it fast as a turbine. He says to do that when using it as a pump… because ALL centrifugal pumps performance is tip speed dependent. But he never says to spin the turbine fast to get high efficiency.
What he does say for increasing the economy is to increase the surface area and decrease the disc spacing. Charlie solis has added that you can change the surface adhesion properties like using hydroPHILLIC coatings to increase the boundary layer width but that’s a whole other discussion. But Tesla is directly quoted as saying:
“Owing to a number of causes affecting the performance, it is difficult to frame a precise rule which would be generally applicable, but it may be stated that within certain limits, and other conditions being the same, the torque is directly proportionate to the square of the velocity of the fluid relatively to the runner and to the effective area of the disks and, inversely, to the distance separating them. The machine will, generally, perform its maximum work when the effective speed of the runner is one-half of that of the fluid; but to attain the highest economy, the relative speed or slip, for any given performance, should be as small as possible. This condition may be to any desired degree approximated by increasing the active area of and reducing the space between the disks.”
@TheIdrake absolutely! i wanna try to make one, but actually im looking to make it as a pump... like heavymetal said, start with the original and go from there...If you can get your hands on matlab and maybe an engineering professor to help with the code if your not familiar or good with matlab you can design a nice machine. Matlab will let you simulate the turbine and change small parameters like disk diameter, thickness, spacing between them, hole size and you can find a good design!
Thank you for the fine explanation, young scientist.
Best explanation I've heard yet.
Great job~!
A lot of Tesla Turbines that I see on youtube have disk spacing that is way too large for the fluid they are using (typically) air. If they use fractions of a millimeter for their spacing, the efficiency should increase.
I can attest to this 🙋♂️ it absolutely does work. Real power and torque at low rpm. 🤤
excellent, thanks for that helpful explanation. any thoughts on if this might be a good set up for home hydro?
Great video, very informative and explained so even I could (mostly) understand it. Gotta love the inventor of the 20th century!
This guy is a very good explainer, I've been looking for this kind of video for days. Thanks Man! 10/10 for you!
@givemetoast you might want to look at some fluid mechanics books for information on that, but it depends on the fluid. You would want a very, VERY smooth pipe entering the inlet, but one that is not too long, as the boundary layer will transition to turbulent flow. I know that you are designing it, but I could be more help if you give me some information, or let me know the dimensions, and I will try and point you into the right areas.
really nice explanation!
I have 1 doubt: You mention that the disk surfaces should be as smooth as possible. I was under the assumption that telsa turbine is a friction based pump and therefore the rougher the disk surfaces the more energy is transferred to the rotating disk. To what extent am I off with this assumption?
@Fordi Unfortuantely no. I have seen no documentation to that. I have heard of the Turbines being used as pumps, but no commericial application of both a turbine and pump.
thank you.. this is everything i wanted to know about the turbine. very concise
@xaviour39 Well technically it doesn't produce any energy. It extracts it from a working fluid. Now the amount of energy extracted depends on the efficiency of the engine in question. The highest experimental efficiency for a single stage Tesla Turbine has been about 35-40%. Theoretically, if you have laminar fluid flow over the surface, then you can achieve efficiencies in excess of 95%.
@heavym3tal Many modern turbines use both reaction and impulse principles. If the working fluid is compressible the reaction turbine is slightly more efficient at the cost of complexity. The famous Parsons ship turbine is a reaction type. The earliest Reaction turbine is the Aeolipile or Hero's engine, a very simple device.
Nikola Tesla actually has a patent for a hybrid parsons and Tesla turbine. It’s patent GB 174,544. It’s specifically for ship use to be able to get the highest economies in what you just explained.
@SvenOkonomi Nikola Tesla developed this turbine in the early 1900s, since it overcame a lot of the complexity of traditional bladed turbines. Personally, I think since more time and money has been spent studying bladed turbine design, those are the types that are most common. Tesla Turbines on the other hand have not been experimented and developed enough.
Agreed!
@matroosjes the theoretical efficiency can be up to 95%, however, the be achieved so far (from what I have researched) is about 35-40%
@MrROTD No problem dude. If you find any data on reaction turbines, it would be interesting to compare efficiencies
Its like saying that you could use another fluid to do the same thing. a fluid that doesnt mix readily with another fluid also being forced through the container- where one fluid representing the air, could pass through the turbine without turning it if it was at low enough pressures, but the other fluid representing air creating higher pressures against the surfaces and container would make it spin.
Thanks! Very informative and very well done.
You have shown me the extent of your scientific knowledge. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.
At last a video that explains things. Congrats.
Most video just show something working and one doesn't get any idea what is going on.
Thanks, It helped, I'm presenting about this tomorow on Tesla Fest!
@008klm the reason that the most of the fluid would fly off the turbine is due to the formation of boundary layers over a surface from fluid mechanics. i suppose that you could control the angular velocity using the method u mentioned, but I think it would be simpler to vary the flow into the turbine.
@anunakibg Absolutely. All a car's turbo is, is a pump attached to a turbine. If you think about it, a pump is a turbine in reverse.
I would assume that the pressure difference between the entrance and exit of the turbine is greater than the rotational force experienced by the fluid as it travels toward the enter. Centripetal force is defined as: F = (m*v^2)/r, therefore, for a unit of fluid mass, the only variables that change the force on that mass are it's linear speed and the radial distance from the center to the circular path.
John Matthews was not answered. Charles Coulomb whom Tesla admired discovered that the smoother the surface a solid body has the greater the contact a moving fluid has on that body. Coulomb was not only a genius in elctro-magentism, but in tribology (science of friction) as well. he is referred to as the father of tribology. Ludwig Prandtl proponet of the boundary layer
@mellifluouschinook I'm not really sure what you mean...can you please elaborate?
@mathayi2000 Is not based on friction but in superficial forces of fluids, the same principle when you put water between 2 CDs and are hard to separate them.
Thank you for the quick responses. I'll have to do some experimentation. Thank you again for the formulas and explainations.
Thank you very much for this wonderful explanation. I was thinking to run a Tesla turbine at very high speeds and use gears to slow it down and gain considerable torque to run a large Dynamo/Generator.
I've been a fan of Tesla Turbines for years. My paper model turbine is shown operating here on UA-cam. I'm glad that Superman's son was able to take time to explain it's working to the people of Earth. Is anybody out there going to use a Tesla Turbine in a car/scooter that runs on compressed air?
@heavym3tal right that makes perfect sense but isn't ceramic fragile? I'm afraid that using ceramic discs might cause them to break or fracture if the revolutions per second get too high or if someone accidently drops it on the ground
Years ago I read an article that said, a jet engine based on the tesla pump would get 3 times the thrust per pound of fuel. How would you design a tesla pump to work as a jet engine?
@TheWhiteTiger57 how do u know that Tesla intended his turbine for pulse combustion? (What is source of info?)
Nicola Tesla’s valvular conduit patent specifically refers to using the turbine and valve as a pulsed deflagration combustion engine.
Also his patent GB 186,083, improved steam + combustion turbine patent that he patented 10 years after the original, can be run both continuous flame jet or in a pulsed deflagration or even pulsed detonation mode.
Great video. Thanks for explaining that.
@maco10810 also, typical CO2 canisters for paintball guns have pressures of around 80 bar. That might have been a problem.
Started off and I thought aah no. but your explanation was very very good after all, thumbs up man.
@dheiliger Not sure. Power plants are kinda complex systems to construct...but I'll be more than happy to help you design one with this type of turbine.
really great info :) you explain things really well :)
You said that lightweight yet smooth discs would help increase performance of a tesla turbine. Would aluminum discs work or should you try something a little heavier bcuz I'm think that a prolonged use of the turbine would cause it give off lots of heat
yes the dimension of the dynamical coefficient of viscosity is named kg/(m^2*s), since the reynolds number is a dimensionless quantity.
@heavym3tal
i think you should also mention that this efficiency is 90% of the carnot limit
thanks heavymetal that was a really good explanation
Have you published your stats? I'd like to see your designs.
Also: what's your particular application?
Look at the vortex air gun. A tube closed at both ends. One end has exhaust ports at the edge. The other a hole in the middle.If you introduce air in the middle. So it spins at high speed. The hot air moves to the outside where the air is faster & the cold low energy air to the slow center.
In the tesla turbine. The gases drag on the disk by means of viscosity and the adhesion of the surface layer of the gas. As the gas slows and adds energy to the disks, it spirals into the center exhaust.
At what scale do you think this breaks down? Could materials be engineered such that electrons would flow in a similar manner? Small currents produce increasingly larger magnetic field or something.
Guys i have 2 questions. First - is it possible to construct such turbine in SolidWorks and to be calculated (simulated) successfully ? Secondly - you probably remember Mercedes SLR with it's turbine wheels. So - is it possible to use Tesla's turbine for that issue - to suck the air out of the clearance and to blow it outward ? The same like SLR's turbines ? Thank you!
@slanw probably, but you would have to put in a correct gear ratio to that the power of the turbine can be transferred into enough torque to move the car.
What do we do with the result from the Boundry Layer equation? What does it represent physically? Also, what is the difference between the Relative Flow Vel (Va) and the Inlet Vel (U)?
The discs spin based on the the idea that at the boundary layer there is greater shear. How would this work if I were to pump a shear thinning fluid in (ie. Drilling Fluid)? Would the drilling fluid begin to thin due the the shear thinning effect and not spin the discs any more?
This is just what I was looking for! Thank you! Question tho. How do I optimize the efficiency of the airstream; that is, the shape and angle of the airflow entering the disk? Are there formulas for air shape (flat or round), thickness and angle?
Do you know of any previous attempts to use a tesla turbine in a closed cycle (i.e., using two turbines, one as pump; hot on one join, cold on the other)?
It really makes sense for me. When rotating in high speed the centripetal force will "pull" the flow out the center.
or what about a vaccuum? running it in a vaccuum/ low atmospheric conditions...you could use some other gas other than air, something super light, and still get the thing to spin...
but looking back at your post- i can see you were just referring to the direction of the flow... it has nothing to do with my longwinded replies! good presentation.
is it correct to say "air" or is saying the pressure from the chamber forces the material(fluid) along a path?
hi nice work, but how do you know what is the working speed for the tesla turbine
+Harout Bulbulian the working speed is the desired result. These things will operate at 150000 rpm. They don't produce much torque so depending on what you are trying to accomplish you would base your design on what work you wanted it to perform.
@@drewberrynews3875 TesTurs produce plenty of torque when you design them correctly.
@@drewberrynews3875 real power and torque even at low rpm.
@maco10810 I'm not sure I can help you with your paintball gun design, but if you have a specific question on the aerodynamics of the tesla turbine discs that is unanswered here, reading about the boundary layer in a fluid dynamics book would be more helpful than myself probably.
were the turbines at Niagra Falls Tesla type turbines?
That was very interesting. Thank you!
It seems like the disk gap for air at 70 deg f going 1k rpm would be .004 inches, or did I figure that wrong? If so it seems like it would be hard to pump very much volume. Any insight would be helpful.
Somehow at some point something doesn't convince me. When you say there's a "straight spiral" towards the center, it means it doesn't still cover the entire surface and is still rotating at low speed. What probably happens in that Fibonacci spiral is only a pressure wave, and since there are two opposite forces of a fluid pushed from the outside to the inner outlet and the same fluid pushed by the disk towards the periphery, one is centripetal and the other centrifugal, the maximum efficiency is obtained when there's a perfect resonance between these forces.
could you give an explanation and thoughts on rotary engines
2:28 Wrong. The air spirals tighter, meaning it goes around the disk more times, thus increasing friction with the disk because the path traveled is longer. You got it the wrong way round.
Sorry you are mistaken. Efficiency is maximized when slip is decreased.
Listen to Tesla’s own words…
“Owing to a number of causes affecting the performance, it is difficult to frame a precise rule which would be generally applicable, but it may be stated that within certain limits, and other conditions being the same, the torque is directly proportionate to the square of the velocity of the fluid relatively to the runner and to the effective area of the disks and, inversely, to the distance separating them. The machine will, generally, perform its maximum work when the effective speed of the runner is one-half of that of the fluid; but to attain the highest economy, the relative speed or slip, for any given performance, should be as small as possible. This condition may be to any desired degree approximated by increasing the active area of and reducing the space between the disks.”
-Nikola Tesla
The fluid should slip the least on the disc faces, but should make as many turns with the disc as possible. So the force on the discs happens through a long rotational distance which is by definition Work Done but since there is the least slip and laminar flow regimes that work is done at the highest efficiency.
The TesTur is NOT a mechanical turbine in any shape or form. Because all molecular adhesion and internal viscous forces within a fluid are governed by electron orbital interactions, this makes the TesTur a purely electronic interaction turbine.
The BIGGEST misconception about the Tesla Turbine that most people get wrong is that they think the fluid is actually sliding and dragging on the disc, similar to as if a solid object was “sliding” across the surface of another solid object.
It is not. Full Stop.
The fluid that’s just off the surface of the disc face is ALWAYS statically adhered to said disc face and never moving relative to the disc.
The torque to the disc comes from shear stress forces within the motive fluid trying to move through itself.
The shear force is transferred through the motive fluid itself to the layer of fluid that is statically adhered to the disc faces, and then through the virtue of molecular adhesion the discs are pulled along with it, or Vice versa the discs pull the fluid along with it.
The only “friction” involved in this is that of internal friction within the fluid against moving through itself, ie viscous forces.
This is not a mechanical turbine in any shape or form.
Since all molecular adhesion and internal viscous forces within a fluid are governed by electron orbital interactions, this makes the Tesla turbine a purely electronic turbine.
As Tesla even alludes to in the article “Dr. Tesla Talks Of Gas Turbines”
… “I have been working at this a long time. Many years ago I invented a pump for pumping mercury. Just a plain disk, like this, and it would work very well. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘that is friction.’ But one day I thought it out, and I thought, ‘No, that is not friction, it is something else. The particles are not always sliding by the disk, but some of them at least are carried along with it. Therefore it cannot be friction. It must be adhesion.’ And that, you see, was the real beginning.
“For if you can imagine a wheel rotating in a medium, whether the fluid is receiving or imparting energy, and moving at nearly the same velocity as the fluid, then you have a minimum of friction, you get little or no ‘slip.’ Then you are getting something very different from friction; you are making use of adhesion alone. It’s all so simple, so very simple.
“This is the greatest of my inventions,”……
-Nikola Tesla (September 18th, 1911)
When designed correctly, it works principally upon electron interactions between the fluid and itself and the fluid and the disc material.
The first important factor being how well does the fluid actually molecularly adhere to the disc faces when submerged in an atmosphere of the motive fluid.
This is also seen as the “Wetting angle” when there are two fluids in contact with the surface and they are competing for adherence.
Think hydrophobic and hydroPHILLIC surface treatments.
The second important factor is the viscosity of the motive fluid in question, as it represents the fluids ability to “flow through itself with or without resistance” per se.
Herein lies the reason it is extremely important to maintain laminar flow regimes within the disc spaces.
Because irrelevant of the viscosity of the fluid, ALL FLUIDS, liquids and gases, can be forced to flow in highly efficient low Reynolds number laminar flow regimes given the right initial conditions and “flow cavity” parameters, such that turbulent boundary layer slip is eliminated, stream separation and counterflow is eliminated, rapid pressure changes from turbulence resulting in noise losses that can lead to early fatigue on discs and parts is eliminated, etc.
Furthermore, because windage is all but inexistent in the Tesla Turbine, it stands to potentially be the quietest running turbine ever when properly designed.
(Sidebar: This is why I have speculated over the years that these Tesla turbines have actually covertly been in practicable use all this time in things like covert/stealth submarine Primary Power Units (PPUs) and/or just plain stealth “trolling motors” but that’s honestly my own sheer educated speculation at this point. 🤷♂️ it just makes sense.)
This is where working out the complex solutions in the Naviar-stokes equations come in for designing practicable machines.
my question is if we can acheive such an efficiency how much heat will be produced and will the turbine be able to handle it? i saw another video that the turbine litterally melted itself apart. also will there be an efficiency loss moving from the turbine energy produced to mechanical energy such as if it were used to mill grain?
Also, what are the formulas for the size of the holes and location of the holes in the disk?
@maco10810 Its not so much to help fuel mix with the air, but more so to reduce heat. Polished surfaces retain much more heat, and we want our exhausts ports to hold as much heat in as possible in order to increase velocity. Rougher inlet ports promote cooling of the intake charge as there is more surface area to flow over. Turbulent airflow is never good, thats why intake ports are still smooth just not polished.
what do you think the efficiency would be if you were able to use helium II?
I am very curious as to utilizing a tesla turbine design in supplement to a IC engine in a vehicle. Though to compete with current blade technology, it will have to manage at least 80% efficiency while spinning well over 100,000rpm.
"Once you get to a point where the angular velocity of the disks is very great then you have a tight spiral that just goes straight to the center" - 2:25 (look at the picture)
Hmmm... I have heard from other sources that you get a more convoluted spiral at higher angular velocities. Which claim is true? No matter which one is true an explination would be nice.
This guy doesn't really understand what he is talking about. The whole discussion about it spiraling towards the center is incorrect, and rather obviously incorrect too.
Sam Ruby
According to Jeffery Hayes, you get the most inefficient when it goes straight to the middle. Either the guy in the video screwed up during the speech, or it was a real mistake.
He describes a tight spiral towards the center at high angular velocities. In fact, the opposite is true. At higher angular velocities, the propelling liquid or gas would actually be forced towards the periphery of the disk, not accelerated towards the center.
Sam Ruby
Right, but the escape hole is in the center and thus the fluid has to move towards the center - this results in a great force of adhesion of the working fluid to the disk.
Sam Ruby
Hey Sam, I happened to have a Tesla Turbine prototype. We use 0.5 disk gap so around 0.019 inch.
We use 27 disk and we're about to build the inlet nozzle. If you are curious you can check out the channel.
in other words it is nothing but that a water pump invested and works with air or water compresed, each disc multiplies the drag the water cause flowing through and cause a vortex in the cylinder increasing the power exponentially
how does the fluid exhaust into and out of the rod?
How might you make one of these with torque to be able to turn a rod/shaft. I have been thinking of tesla turbines powerd by steam to charge battery's, so how would you create the torque for something like an alternator
Gearing it down or make with perpendicular fins to direction of flow.
Johnnyq90 has some really good examples
+Stephen Redmond from what I've studied so far on these tesla turbines the way to increase torque is to increase disc size and number and as the video mentions reduce spacing of the discs accordingly. The problem is how people are discussing what efficiency is. I think it has an extremely high mechanical efficiency. However this does not mean electrical efficiency. As he says in the video the you will get greater efficiency at higher speeds...to a certain point. Commonly these are tested at way too low of rpms to get good results. And as he says it doesn't produce a lot of power. Fins will increase torque but drastically lower efficiency at the higher rpms. So for this device it's better to increase the disc size which will lower the rpms producing more torque but maintaining higher mechanical efficiency.
Charlie Solis makes actual working Tesla turbines that output real power and torque even at low RPMs. You have to increase the surface area and decrease the disc spacing to reduce slip.
what about reaction turbines? in other words the rotor has outlets that make it rotate. how efficient is that compared to the tesla?
I don't think you understand the 2nd law of Thermodynamics, Thermal Power Cycles, or even Carnot's theory on heat engines. Carnot never set a thermodynamic efficiency limit on a particular type of engine. He simply stated that you can never produce an engine that has a thermal efficiency of 100%, meaning that there are no losses converting thermal energy to mechanical energy. An efficiency of 90% is possible theoretically, but experimentally it is unproven.
Good video, editing could have been better but content was solid.
@complexjel2002 If you increase the efficiency of the device that converts heat into mechanical or electrical energy, then obviously you can reduce emissions for electrical generation.
What is the laminar coefficient factor for hollering, "Uncle!!"? ;-))
@Kenzofeis If I get the chance to do more research with the tesla turbine, I would like to change the shape of the disc edges to airfoils, or maybe a parabolic shape. However, I do not know the outcome. If you get the chance please inform me of any progress :)
That's awesome. Please Let me know his results :)
your quite welcome for the explanation.
@chimp2082 Or a multistage Tesla with intercooling...