97% Efficiency?! Was Tesla Right About His Turbine?

[henwyd]

whenever you put a load on it, its efficiency decreases to a point where it is only marginally better than a traditional turbine, and even though it was still marginally better, it was never widely used because the blades would warp.

[Tondy]

As a croatian I can only wonder what wonders he could have done if he wasnt born in those miserable conditions and if his work got recognised

[FlyswatterThe]

I've heard once you drive a load it becomes very inefficient. Can you test that for us? :)

[provuksmc]

97% if there is no load attached to it... otherwise everyone in the world would use it already

[MoxxoM]

Efficiency goes down fast under load though.

[UpAndRunning-xzer]

If the concept worked best, we would be using it. Yes, it's that simple.

[jasonmurawski]

It’s very efficient when there’s no load. As you load it the wheels spin slower than the airstream and you instantly loose any benefit from it

[Le_Plasma]

Less torque
High centrifugal force caused the discs to warp which limits prolonged use

[southwestwings]

That 3d turbine animation .... the blades were spinning the wrong way for the air direction 😂

[AsbestosMuffins]

its hard to keep the disks rigid and to increase scale you need big, thin, disks which are harder to manufacture

[stuporter]

This is how the torque converter in your car works..sorta..it's called a viscous coupler..uses the same principals to connect power from engine to the transmission

[YodaWhat]

Nikola Tesla was interested in High Frequency Alternating Current, so the high rpm of his turbines was a good match to the alternators. He drove his turbines with STEAM, not AIR, which is important because steam carries much more energy for a given mass of gas, AND he expanded the steam more than a normal turbine can withstand. Expand to the point where water droplets are forming and normal turbine blades get damaged by the zillions of tiny shock impacts at near the (local) speed of sound. *Tesla's turbine receives no such impacts, since the flow is parallel to the disks.* That means a much larger portion of the steam heat can be extracted, turned into Work (shaft power). In other words, producing power at High Thermal Efficiency η (eta).

[stephenwilson]

Not to be that guy buuut.... That jet engine was spinning backwards 😂

[DeadlyEnzyme]

The unmentioned component of this is that, when under load, the spin slightly reduces which causes turbulence which leads to essentially the same overall efficiency.

[Raussl]

there are also major problems with this kind of turbine. Like boundry layer effect, blade tip velocity or scaleability...

[monad_tcp]

It is really impressive how efficient the Tesla Turbine is, I have a torque converter in my car and I can attest.

The problem with his turbine is that its not very efficient for water or air, the most common liquids we want to pump, because of viscosity.

[vincentprime]

97% efficiency with 3% practicallity 😂

[eddusii]

Most ingenious, bro Da Vinci had him beat at 20

[Dave-dm]

Tesla Turbine arguably makes power when spinning extremely fast, but any load causes too much slip between fluid and rotor. It stalls and makes no power.

[JohanReichert]

I love the part where he says how efficient it actually is!