Bladeless Turbine built by Nikola Tesla #tesla #engineering #science

@CharlieSolis
TesTur Energy Tesla Turbine:
Use “Integza5” to get $50 off your turbine!

[kataseiko]

The problem with that turbine is that every turbine of that kind built until now has torn itself apart because we don't have materials with high enough tensile strength to withstand the forces inside that turbine. It's just that insanely fast.

[HeyItsTheWykydtron]

"In theory" is such a lovely phrase

[delanask]

Hi I did my Master's thesis on this turbine and we have known since at least the early 50's that Tesla's claims of extremely high efficiencies were based on nothing. This is a neat expansion turbine concept for residential scale powers, but on the smaller scale it is surpassed by reciprocating systems and on the larger scale more traditional turbines are actually more efficient. One thing it does have going for it is that it is remarkably quiet, which lends itself well to niche applications like powering rotary dental tools. It is also conveniently easy to make a functioning bladeless turbine, although (as I learned) optimizing the efficiency is more challenging

[thalastianjorus]

YES... it CAN run with air. You'll see almost EVERY YouTube channel make a variation of the statement "even with air!" However this was not it's original design, and no serious research setup uses air. It was initially designed to run with low viscosity oil - kept inside a pressurized, closed system. This is how our lab is running ours.


The oil creates a 'cushion' of uncompressable, low friction media for the discs. The chamber should have as little space as possible to either side of the disc wheel, and again as little space as possible around the circumference. This keeps the material of the discs from being able to expand, or vibrate, and as such keeping them together through the stresses applied by fluid turbulence or centrifugal force.

[sam-is-a-human]

it's super efficient at high speeds! it EXPLODES at high speeds.

[Killerean]

In theory it is more efficient. In practice we're yet to find a material that can be this thin and stand that much g-force to make it actually good.

EDIT: Love the amount of attention here, many creative minds here suggesting cool new materials but I don't think you people imagine quite the amount of forces at play here.

EDIT EDIT EDIT:
Because I'm a moron, I added the diameter of my 1m disc calculation below as a radius. So for 1m disc it's 50% down. The calculations below are actually for a 2m disc. For 1m disc the force at 10000rpm would be something around 13.5 metric tons of force acting on its rim. And that's why you publish your calculations along with your results. So that good people can tell you where have you gone dumb. And now that I've owned my mistakes I can get absolutely wasted for the weekend. Cheers!

EDIT EDIT:
It was pointed out to me that I have made a miscalculation in the example below. Took you people a damn while before somebody actually checked the numbers. I have made a mistake due to some language barrier and I've read 8.559N as 8, 559N. It's a subtle difference in text but a big one in mathematics. Three decimal spaces worth of a mistake that is. The 8.559N value is the force acting upon each cubic millimeter of the edge. The actual force working on the last 10mm of the edge of a 1m wide 1mm thick disc is "only" about 27390 kgf or 268604 N (about 27 tons or a large truck worth of goods), that is much less than I calculated previously. I shall keep the original example down below so that you can see what that mistake looks like. Still, 27 tons acting upon the material of the disc and central shaft is still a lot of force.

(THIS ENTIRE CALCULATION IS WRONG! LOOK UP THE NUMBERS ABOVE!
So I went and just for fun made a calculation for a very very basic Tesla turbine. It's single 1mm thick disc (because spherical cow in a vacuum) at 1 meter diameter, at 10000 RPM, made of generic steel. And because I'm lazy we care only about the outer 10mm of the disc, so effectively a spinning circle. The resulting centrifugal force on that disc, is in total over 27500kN of force. About 8770N for every cubic millimeter on the edge of that disc. That's around 28000 metric tons of mass pulling outwards in all directions. That my friends is roughly a USS Texas (BB-35) worth of mass, just casually pulling that disc apart. Titanium weighs at about half of steel. That would be about 14000 metric tons of force. That's why Tesla turbine is not viable. The forces scale at barely imaginable level. Remember that's just one disc, you'll need at least 50 to make that thing worth while.)

[kadecadyncomics]

It could reach insane efficiency but when you try to use it at full power it does work for a few seconds but then breaks bc of the force on the plates

[-Bile-]

The reason this design isnt used today is because its most efficient at extremely high rpm. The problem is that there are very few materials which can withstand the tip velocity at those speeds.

[jasonrock]

This was proven to not work under a load. That's why it's not used. ANYBODY can spin a disk on its own weight.

[seanripperger]

For someone who says "tomatoes are disgusting", you always have plenty around. Or is that Tomato Lords minions that keep coming after you. Don't know.
Enjoyed the short snd the full video.

[gawayne]

I see some of the problems pointed out about the turbine. If I may add, it's not very powerful either, because it relies entirely on boundary layer effects to produce torque.

[MDMDMDMDMDMDMDMDMD]

The beauty of the 3, the 6, and the 9

[questionblechoices]

My question is, if it has the most torque at lower speed would this work better for Micro Hydro for like homesteading, or providing off-grid power to like a cabin off of a small Creek.

[enraikow]

Don't get your hopes too high fellas.
The turbine is only able to reach high or even reasonably better efficiencies than its turbined counterparts when it achieves super high RPMs. It needs to be rotating so fast that there aren't any light enough or strong enough materials to achieve that speed in the first place without deforming or exploding.
And no it's not some forgotten tech, it's already used in some factories to move/pump viscous liquids.

[izzaacalley]

The reason this design couldn’t be used was due to the fact that it is SO efficient that it would spin insanely fast. To this day we lack a material that would be suitable for this

[Evamme]

It's so efficient we don't currently have a material that can handle the speeds it spins at

[thefox]

its very efficient in theory but
1. breaks at high speed
2. loses efficiency when a load is applied and is roughly efficient as a normal turbine
3. generally hard to swap out all our turbines for a less useful turbine

[izzyplusplusplus]

I think the strategy of stamping dimples into aluminum was such a big brain move.

[kennykentus]

In theory yes, in practise the efficiency drops once you attach the turbine to the generator as the generator starts generate additional friction in itself. I think the efficiency drops to the rest of the turbines (65 % I think), but the rest of the drawbacks remain that other turbines don't have - like being extremly fragile - they are cheap, but you have to change them more freguently.

Edit: I recalled the main problem, the turbine struggles to generate torque, once attached the the efficiency drops, becouse once the counterforce of additional friction outside the turbine is added, the water friciton isn't enough and water partialy starts to "slip" withouth generating much of a force. Other turbines relly more on being pushed by a mass of water itself.

[oplegend]

it uses friction energy loose in form of heat