Love to see this running on video again. Planning on purchasing one of these units once I can save up a little bit. I want to start looking into your water battery system but am currently hung up on the condenser design you show. Can you point me towards any good reference material for it?
Hey have you considered using cageless silicon nitride ball bearings? They are rated for around a 1200f, and they run dry. 1200f is being on the safe side I’ve pushed mine more in my turbojet.
you are claiming 30-40 psi input pressure. I cannot see a regulator in your system regulating inlet pressure am I missing something? it looks like full flow from your compressor rapidly reducing pressure as 190 Gallon volume is depleated?
@@CharlieSolis I am experimenting with Pulse detonation engines. I am theorizing that a Tesla turbine can be started with air as you have done but it could be able to use the PDE engine to keep it going with much less fuel usage. As you have the Tesla Turbine could you set up an air solenoid and when it reaches max rpm cut flow then pulse the air to see what is required to keep it running. PDE can use HHO which can be renewable (water) and solar panel electrolysis.
Love this work. I’d love it even more if you could determine the overall efficiency (watts in vs watts out) so it can be compared to other turbines. Couldn’t you try using a compressor or some other high pressure / high flow rate electric fan? This way you could directly measure watts input vs output.
Hey thanks for commenting. As far as efficiency goes… (mind you this is a copy pasta 🍝 so it’s a bit long but it’s worth the read for my first 10in Tesla turbines.) …My 2650watt electrical load run came in with a very low ball calculation of 40% isentropic efficiency. To start off, mind you that includes generator losses, 3 phase rectifier losses, and inverter losses to the electrical load that were not accounted for. So the turbine off the bat is already most definitely doing better than the 40% isentropic efficiency I’ve calculated from the already low ball test results. But for now I’ll just assume 40% isentropic efficiency so that I’m not over claiming what I can prove it can actually do for the time being. (I have nothing in the long run to benefit by overstating my numbers and only my legitimacy to lose. I’ve worked hard for my physics degree and don’t intend to tarnish it for a couple of extra views on the internet.) As far as inefficiencies to the system to fix, there’s 10x crappy ball bearings in this version, 2 crappy RC car gears, both losses will be gained for power out with a direct to shaft generator. (Minus two gears and 8 crappy ball bearings) There’s an 1/8 of an inch of space between the turbine endplates and the casing endplates on both sides of the TesTur. That’s a 1/4in of open flow area around the 2in wide turbine (that only even has a total of 0.75in wide of spacing between all the tight disc spaces for torque to begin with.) That means 25% of the open space for flowing through the casing, between discs and between the casing and turbine endplates, is just free flow over the side of the turbine still. (I’m using the absolute bottom of the barrel of machining equipment right now in my garage 🤷♂️) There’s no labyrinth seals yet to even attempt to further reduce that overflow… The nozzle is atrocious at the moment, when making the variable converging section have a tight convergence it causes the fluid jet to aim more centripetally (towards the axle) instead of tangentially (glancing off the disc tips) which severely effects the fluids natural path. This will be fixed with the new variable nozzle design I’m going with. Then even further in this specific casing’s assembly there’s two “pillars” in the middle of the nozzle. This is because the aluminum plates in the middle of the casing plate stack only had the variable nozzle bar and inlet holes cut out, and not the full nozzle geometry. So those pillars are just vertical bars in the middle of the nozzle for the air to smash into just before going into the turbine (hopefully the wet steam tests will just erode them down 🤭) Before all that there’s still about 100ft of air hose between the tanks and the turbine… plus a shell and tube heat exchanger and a TON of elbows and fittings. I’m sure I’m forgetting something too but between all that being fixed… I can almost guarantee we will be in the 60-70s % range and that’s all just still with room temp compressed air. Most forget, I’m using room temp compressed air and never went over 20psi at the nozzle for these tests. (Pressure differential and temperature differential govern efficiency) And even then I still only even have a single stage on it yet. Everyone wants to compare it to the efficiency of a very high temp, high pressure (1000°F & ~1800psi) multibillion dollar 15-30 stage steam turbines… 😮💨 That’s apples to rocket ships. 😅 But considering Rankine Steam cycles get theoretical max about 33% of input heat (due to latent heat of condensation and that’s without any regenerative boiler feedwater preheat, air fuel preheat, etc) and then 40% isentropic efficiency (considering the turbine as is) we’re looking at 13.2% thermal efficiency with steam. A more apt comparison for the TesTur would be something an individual can actually purchase, like 1-5kW piston gas generators that you can get from Home Depot or Lowe’s. These get 15-22% thermal efficiency off the plant floor. Good luck getting that 1 year down the line or later with all those moving parts. Also for reference, industry standard for micro bladed gas turbines is 25% thermal to electrical. Whole system efficiency can go higher in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system, but alas the TesTur would see the same whole system efficiency increase in a CHP Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). In the TesTur you gotta replace…? 🤔bearings…? And still even then, only maybe 🤷♂️ depending on how good of bearings, balance, lubing, cooling. The TesTur, and other bladed turbines, only have one moving part. 🔥 So if those piston generators drop efficiency, even at all, the TesTur on its worst day is competitive with a gasoline piston engine electric generator.🤓😬🤷♂️ And the TesTur can handle any fuel that can burn, even solid particulate fuels like powdered saw dust, pulverized coal, powdered iron, biomass, etc. (noting the number of those that can be acquired without spending money… 🤑 opening up “low monetary cost”, even carbon neutral, fuel options for MILLIONS around the world) We have to remember that the TesTur doesn’t have to be the holy grail to be worth using if we have free fuels readily available like biomass, and even waste heat already being dumped out into the air and not used for anything. The TesTur just has to be a viable option for some to be worth doing. Even more, the mere fact that I’m using a low temp fluid for my 40% isentropic efficiency calculation means my TesTur efficiency is severely limited by thermodynamics and fluid dynamics. Increasing temps will automatically increase my turbines efficiency. This is because gasses have an increasing viscosity trend as you increase the temperature. This leads to increased isentropic efficiencies in the TesTur from reduced slip on the discs. (Meanwhile, we’re already talking about a piston engine using combustion temps as is.) Whereas bladed turbines see the increased viscosity as an increase in drag loss through the turbine blades. So we can’t always count on seeing increased isentropic efficiencies in a bladed turbine in practice when we go from low temp to a high temp. Again, to reiterate, this increase in viscosity in the TesTur only works to enhance the working action of the TesTur. (That being viscous adhesion to the disc faces increasing torque.) That’s all on top of the increased thermodynamic efficiencies of using a higher temp elastic fluid too! 🤓 The disc spacing for room temp gasses is not going to be the same for combustion temp gasses/steam because the viscosity of either increases by 3x fold. And I’ve designed these spaces for a higher temp fluid with a slightly higher viscosity so these will inherently be too wide at the current temperatures being used. So as we increase temps along with all these other really easy to fix mechanical issues (that only are a thing because I’m building this in my garage on a junk cnc machine) I have no doubt we will see more than competitive isentropic efficiencies compared to bladed turbines, let alone whole system thermal efficiencies that are through the roof. This is because of the heat recovery systems that can be added with the cost savings of using a TesTur vs a VERY expensive, and in my opinion, relatively delicate bladed turbine. Just getting tighter casing clearance with the turbine should give me at least 20% points back on efficiency putting my testur at the 60% range. Coming in with a 19% thermal efficiency in a Rankine steam system without any kind of thermal recoup.
@@CharlieSolis You know.. another thought I had. Pretty sure I heard you say in one of your videos that the tes-tur works even better under higher torque applications. Why not add a 3 to 1, or 4 to 1 gearbox or belt to the output, so your generator still spins really fast, but the turbine itself can spin slower, and possibly better take advantage of the viscosity? (also quiet-errr!) 🙂
Amazing build, great skills really bravo, I could say I even learned some stuff from the very detailed answer you gave, I think a question off mine to you is for every watt you gave into the system how many watt did you produce?
@@michailchoursoulidis2445 hey thanks for commenting! 🙏❤️🔥 I, glad you found that useful! so mind you the following is all for my 10in diameter TesTur that I have already done a lot of these following fixes on the 4.5in testur. So I don’t have an exact number for the 4.5in TesTur just yet but I have already seen the little 4.5in one power the same 250 watt load for longer than the old 10in TesTur powered it and it used slightly less air and pressure from the same sized tank. As far as efficiency goes… (mind you this is a copy pasta 🍝 so it’s a bit long but it’s worth the read.) …My 2650watt electrical load run came in with a very low ball calculation of 40% isentropic efficiency. To start off, mind you that includes generator losses, 3 phase rectifier losses, and inverter losses to the electrical load that were not accounted for. So the turbine off the bat is already most definitely doing better than the 40% isentropic efficiency I’ve calculated from the already low ball test results. But for now I’ll just assume 40% isentropic efficiency so that I’m not over claiming what I can prove it can actually do for the time being. (I have nothing in the long run to benefit by overstating my numbers and only my legitimacy to lose. I’ve worked hard for my physics degree and don’t intend to tarnish it for a couple of extra views on the internet.) As far as inefficiencies to the system to fix, there’s 10x crappy ball bearings in this version, 2 crappy RC car gears, both losses will be gained for power out with a direct to shaft generator. (Minus two gears and 8 crappy ball bearings) There’s an 1/8 of an inch of space between the turbine endplates and the casing endplates on both sides of the TesTur. That’s a 1/4in of open flow area around the 2in wide turbine (that only even has a total of 0.75in wide of spacing between all the tight disc spaces for torque to begin with.) That means 25% of the open space for flowing through the casing, between discs and between the casing and turbine endplates, is just free flow over the side of the turbine still. (I’m using the absolute bottom of the barrel of machining equipment right now in my garage 🤷♂️) There’s no labyrinth seals yet to even attempt to further reduce that overflow… The nozzle is atrocious at the moment, when making the variable converging section have a tight convergence it causes the fluid jet to aim more centripetally (towards the axle) instead of tangentially (glancing off the disc tips) which severely effects the fluids natural path. This will be fixed with the new variable nozzle design I’m going with. Then even further in this specific casing’s assembly there’s two “pillars” in the middle of the nozzle. This is because the aluminum plates in the middle of the casing plate stack only had the variable nozzle bar and inlet holes cut out, and not the full nozzle geometry. So those pillars are just vertical bars in the middle of the nozzle for the air to smash into just before going into the turbine (hopefully the wet steam tests will just erode them down 🤭) Before all that there’s still about 100ft of air hose between the tanks and the turbine… plus a shell and tube heat exchanger and a TON of elbows and fittings. I’m sure I’m forgetting something too but between all that being fixed… I can almost guarantee we will be in the 60-70s % range and that’s all just still with room temp compressed air. Most forget, I’m using room temp compressed air and never went over 20psi at the nozzle for these tests. (Pressure differential and temperature differential govern efficiency) And even then I still only even have a single stage on it yet. Everyone wants to compare it to the efficiency of a very high temp, high pressure (1000°F & ~1800psi) multibillion dollar 15-30 stage steam turbines… 😮💨 That’s apples to rocket ships. 😅 But considering Rankine Steam cycles get theoretical max about 33% of input heat (due to latent heat of condensation and that’s without any regenerative boiler feedwater preheat, air fuel preheat, etc) and then 40% isentropic efficiency (considering the turbine as is) we’re looking at 13.2% thermal efficiency with steam. A more apt comparison for the TesTur would be something an individual can actually purchase, like 1-5kW piston gas generators that you can get from Home Depot or Lowe’s. These get 15-22% thermal efficiency off the plant floor. Good luck getting that 1 year down the line or later with all those moving parts. Also for reference, industry standard for micro bladed gas turbines is 25% thermal to electrical. Whole system efficiency can go higher in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system, but alas the TesTur would see the same whole system efficiency increase in a CHP Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). In the TesTur you gotta replace…? 🤔bearings…? And still even then, only maybe 🤷♂️ depending on how good of bearings, balance, lubing, cooling. The TesTur, and other bladed turbines, only have one moving part. 🔥
@@michailchoursoulidis2445 So if those piston generators drop efficiency, even at all, the TesTur on its worst day is competitive with a gasoline piston engine electric generator.🤓😬🤷♂️ And the TesTur can handle any fuel that can burn, even solid particulate fuels like powdered saw dust, pulverized coal, powdered iron, biomass, etc. (noting the number of those that can be acquired without spending money… 🤑 opening up “low monetary cost”, even carbon neutral, fuel options for MILLIONS around the world) We have to remember that the TesTur doesn’t have to be the holy grail to be worth using if we have free fuels readily available like biomass, and even waste heat already being dumped out into the air and not used for anything. The TesTur just has to be a viable option for some to be worth doing. Even more, the mere fact that I’m using a low temp fluid for my 40% isentropic efficiency calculation means my TesTur efficiency is severely limited by thermodynamics and fluid dynamics. Increasing temps will automatically increase my turbines efficiency. This is because gasses have an increasing viscosity trend as you increase the temperature. This leads to increased isentropic efficiencies in the TesTur from reduced slip on the discs. (Meanwhile, we’re already talking about a piston engine using combustion temps as is.) Whereas bladed turbines see the increased viscosity as an increase in drag loss through the turbine blades. So we can’t always count on seeing increased isentropic efficiencies in a bladed turbine in practice when we go from low temp to a high temp. Again, to reiterate, this increase in viscosity in the TesTur only works to enhance the working action of the TesTur. (That being viscous adhesion to the disc faces increasing torque.) That’s all on top of the increased thermodynamic efficiencies of using a higher temp elastic fluid too! 🤓 The disc spacing for room temp gasses is not going to be the same for combustion temp gasses/steam because the viscosity of either increases by 3x fold. And I’ve designed these spaces for a higher temp fluid with a slightly higher viscosity so these will inherently be too wide at the current temperatures being used. So as we increase temps along with all these other really easy to fix mechanical issues (that only are a thing because I’m building this in my garage on a junk cnc machine) I have no doubt we will see more than competitive isentropic efficiencies compared to bladed turbines, let alone whole system thermal efficiencies that are through the roof. This is because of the heat recovery systems that can be added with the cost savings of using a TesTur vs a VERY expensive, and in my opinion, relatively delicate bladed turbine. Just getting tighter casing clearance with the turbine should give me at least 20% points back on efficiency putting my testur at the 60% range. Coming in with a 19% thermal efficiency in a Rankine steam system without any kind of thermal recoup.
Hey thanks for asking. A few minutes because the tanks are only so big. More steam and combustion tests coming soon! I just got my stainless steel capable CNC machine up and running so I just gotta finish pure turbine orders and then start cutting out some stainless prototypes.
![[4K] Watch SpaceX Catch A Starship Rocket From Space!!! #IFT5](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pIKI7y3DTXk/mqdefault.jpg)
Love to see this running on video again. Planning on purchasing one of these units once I can save up a little bit. I want to start looking into your water battery system but am currently hung up on the condenser design you show. Can you point me towards any good reference material for it?
Lets freaking go. step by step. keep on crushing.
Hey have you considered using cageless silicon nitride ball bearings? They are rated for around a 1200f, and they run dry. 1200f is being on the safe side I’ve pushed mine more in my turbojet.
you are claiming 30-40 psi input pressure. I cannot see a regulator in your system regulating inlet pressure am I missing something? it looks like full flow from your compressor rapidly reducing pressure as 190 Gallon volume is depleated?
Hey thanks for commenting. There are 2 gauges. Ones has the tank pressure and one has the nozzle pressure. I hope this helps.
@@CharlieSolis I am experimenting with Pulse detonation engines. I am theorizing that a Tesla turbine can be started with air as you have done but it could be able to use the PDE engine to keep it going with much less fuel usage. As you have the Tesla Turbine could you set up an air solenoid and when it reaches max rpm cut flow then pulse the air to see what is required to keep it running. PDE can use HHO which can be renewable (water) and solar panel electrolysis.
Love this work. I’d love it even more if you could determine the overall efficiency (watts in vs watts out) so it can be compared to other turbines.
Couldn’t you try using a compressor or some other high pressure / high flow rate electric fan? This way you could directly measure watts input vs output.
Hey thanks for commenting. As far as efficiency goes… (mind you this is a copy pasta 🍝 so it’s a bit long but it’s worth the read for my first 10in Tesla turbines.) …My 2650watt electrical load run came in with a very low ball calculation of 40% isentropic efficiency. To start off, mind you that includes generator losses, 3 phase rectifier losses, and inverter losses to the electrical load that were not accounted for. So the turbine off the bat is already most definitely doing better than the 40% isentropic efficiency I’ve calculated from the already low ball test results. But for now I’ll just assume 40% isentropic efficiency so that I’m not over claiming what I can prove it can actually do for the time being. (I have nothing in the long run to benefit by overstating my numbers and only my legitimacy to lose. I’ve worked hard for my physics degree and don’t intend to tarnish it for a couple of extra views on the internet.)
As far as inefficiencies to the system to fix, there’s 10x crappy ball bearings in this version, 2 crappy RC car gears, both losses will be gained for power out with a direct to shaft generator. (Minus two gears and 8 crappy ball bearings) There’s an 1/8 of an inch of space between the turbine endplates and the casing endplates on both sides of the TesTur. That’s a 1/4in of open flow area around the 2in wide turbine (that only even has a total of 0.75in wide of spacing between all the tight disc spaces for torque to begin with.) That means 25% of the open space for flowing through the casing, between discs and between the casing and turbine endplates, is just free flow over the side of the turbine still. (I’m using the absolute bottom of the barrel of machining equipment right now in my garage 🤷♂️) There’s no labyrinth seals yet to even attempt to further reduce that overflow…
The nozzle is atrocious at the moment, when making the variable converging section have a tight convergence it causes the fluid jet to aim more centripetally (towards the axle) instead of tangentially (glancing off the disc tips) which severely effects the fluids natural path. This will be fixed with the new variable nozzle design I’m going with. Then even further in this specific casing’s assembly there’s two “pillars” in the middle of the nozzle. This is because the aluminum plates in the middle of the casing plate stack only had the variable nozzle bar and inlet holes cut out, and not the full nozzle geometry. So those pillars are just vertical bars in the middle of the nozzle for the air to smash into just before going into the turbine (hopefully the wet steam tests will just erode them down 🤭) Before all that there’s still about 100ft of air hose between the tanks and the turbine… plus a shell and tube heat exchanger and a TON of elbows and fittings. I’m sure I’m forgetting something too but between all that being fixed… I can almost guarantee we will be in the 60-70s % range and that’s all just still with room temp compressed air. Most forget, I’m using room temp compressed air and never went over 20psi at the nozzle for these tests. (Pressure differential and temperature differential govern efficiency)
And even then I still only even have a single stage on it yet. Everyone wants to compare it to the efficiency of a very high temp, high pressure (1000°F & ~1800psi) multibillion dollar 15-30 stage steam turbines… 😮💨 That’s apples to rocket ships. 😅 But considering Rankine Steam cycles get theoretical max about 33% of input heat (due to latent heat of condensation and that’s without any regenerative boiler feedwater preheat, air fuel preheat, etc) and then 40% isentropic efficiency (considering the turbine as is) we’re looking at 13.2% thermal efficiency with steam. A more apt comparison for the TesTur would be something an individual can actually purchase, like 1-5kW piston gas generators that you can get from Home Depot or Lowe’s. These get 15-22% thermal efficiency off the plant floor. Good luck getting that 1 year down the line or later with all those moving parts. Also for reference, industry standard for micro bladed gas turbines is 25% thermal to electrical. Whole system efficiency can go higher in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system, but alas the TesTur would see the same whole system efficiency increase in a CHP Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). In the TesTur you gotta replace…? 🤔bearings…? And still even then, only maybe 🤷♂️ depending on how good of bearings, balance, lubing, cooling. The TesTur, and other bladed turbines, only have one moving part. 🔥
So if those piston generators drop efficiency, even at all, the TesTur on its worst day is competitive with a gasoline piston engine electric generator.🤓😬🤷♂️ And the TesTur can handle any fuel that can burn, even solid particulate fuels like powdered saw dust, pulverized coal, powdered iron, biomass, etc. (noting the number of those that can be acquired without spending money… 🤑 opening up “low monetary cost”, even carbon neutral, fuel options for MILLIONS around the world) We have to remember that the TesTur doesn’t have to be the holy grail to be worth using if we have free fuels readily available like biomass, and even waste heat already being dumped out into the air and not used for anything. The TesTur just has to be a viable option for some to be worth doing.
Even more, the mere fact that I’m using a low temp fluid for my 40% isentropic efficiency calculation means my TesTur efficiency is severely limited by thermodynamics and fluid dynamics. Increasing temps will automatically increase my turbines efficiency. This is because gasses have an increasing viscosity trend as you increase the temperature. This leads to increased isentropic efficiencies in the TesTur from reduced slip on the discs. (Meanwhile, we’re already talking about a piston engine using combustion temps as is.) Whereas bladed turbines see the increased viscosity as an increase in drag loss through the turbine blades. So we can’t always count on seeing increased isentropic efficiencies in a bladed turbine in practice when we go from low temp to a high temp. Again, to reiterate, this increase in viscosity in the TesTur only works to enhance the working action of the TesTur. (That being viscous adhesion to the disc faces increasing torque.) That’s all on top of the increased thermodynamic efficiencies of using a higher temp elastic fluid too! 🤓
The disc spacing for room temp gasses is not going to be the same for combustion temp gasses/steam because the viscosity of either increases by 3x fold. And I’ve designed these spaces for a higher temp fluid with a slightly higher viscosity so these will inherently be too wide at the current temperatures being used. So as we increase temps along with all these other really easy to fix mechanical issues (that only are a thing because I’m building this in my garage on a junk cnc machine) I have no doubt we will see more than competitive isentropic efficiencies compared to bladed turbines, let alone whole system thermal efficiencies that are through the roof. This is because of the heat recovery systems that can be added with the cost savings of using a TesTur vs a VERY expensive, and in my opinion, relatively delicate bladed turbine. Just getting tighter casing clearance with the turbine should give me at least 20% points back on efficiency putting my testur at the 60% range. Coming in with a 19% thermal efficiency in a Rankine steam system without any kind of thermal recoup.
@@CharlieSolis You know.. another thought I had. Pretty sure I heard you say in one of your videos that the tes-tur works even better under higher torque applications. Why not add a 3 to 1, or 4 to 1 gearbox or belt to the output, so your generator still spins really fast, but the turbine itself can spin slower, and possibly better take advantage of the viscosity? (also quiet-errr!) 🙂
Amazing build, great skills really bravo, I could say I even learned some stuff from the very detailed answer you gave, I think a question off mine to you is for every watt you gave into the system how many watt did you produce?
@@michailchoursoulidis2445 hey thanks for commenting! 🙏❤️🔥 I, glad you found that useful!
so mind you the following is all for my 10in diameter TesTur that I have already done a lot of these following fixes on the 4.5in testur. So I don’t have an exact number for the 4.5in TesTur just yet but I have already seen the little 4.5in one power the same 250 watt load for longer than the old 10in TesTur powered it and it used slightly less air and pressure from the same sized tank.
As far as efficiency goes… (mind you this is a copy pasta 🍝 so it’s a bit long but it’s worth the read.) …My 2650watt electrical load run came in with a very low ball calculation of 40% isentropic efficiency. To start off, mind you that includes generator losses, 3 phase rectifier losses, and inverter losses to the electrical load that were not accounted for. So the turbine off the bat is already most definitely doing better than the 40% isentropic efficiency I’ve calculated from the already low ball test results. But for now I’ll just assume 40% isentropic efficiency so that I’m not over claiming what I can prove it can actually do for the time being. (I have nothing in the long run to benefit by overstating my numbers and only my legitimacy to lose. I’ve worked hard for my physics degree and don’t intend to tarnish it for a couple of extra views on the internet.)
As far as inefficiencies to the system to fix, there’s 10x crappy ball bearings in this version, 2 crappy RC car gears, both losses will be gained for power out with a direct to shaft generator. (Minus two gears and 8 crappy ball bearings) There’s an 1/8 of an inch of space between the turbine endplates and the casing endplates on both sides of the TesTur. That’s a 1/4in of open flow area around the 2in wide turbine (that only even has a total of 0.75in wide of spacing between all the tight disc spaces for torque to begin with.) That means 25% of the open space for flowing through the casing, between discs and between the casing and turbine endplates, is just free flow over the side of the turbine still. (I’m using the absolute bottom of the barrel of machining equipment right now in my garage 🤷♂️) There’s no labyrinth seals yet to even attempt to further reduce that overflow…
The nozzle is atrocious at the moment, when making the variable converging section have a tight convergence it causes the fluid jet to aim more centripetally (towards the axle) instead of tangentially (glancing off the disc tips) which severely effects the fluids natural path. This will be fixed with the new variable nozzle design I’m going with. Then even further in this specific casing’s assembly there’s two “pillars” in the middle of the nozzle. This is because the aluminum plates in the middle of the casing plate stack only had the variable nozzle bar and inlet holes cut out, and not the full nozzle geometry. So those pillars are just vertical bars in the middle of the nozzle for the air to smash into just before going into the turbine (hopefully the wet steam tests will just erode them down 🤭) Before all that there’s still about 100ft of air hose between the tanks and the turbine… plus a shell and tube heat exchanger and a TON of elbows and fittings. I’m sure I’m forgetting something too but between all that being fixed… I can almost guarantee we will be in the 60-70s % range and that’s all just still with room temp compressed air. Most forget, I’m using room temp compressed air and never went over 20psi at the nozzle for these tests. (Pressure differential and temperature differential govern efficiency)
And even then I still only even have a single stage on it yet. Everyone wants to compare it to the efficiency of a very high temp, high pressure (1000°F & ~1800psi) multibillion dollar 15-30 stage steam turbines… 😮💨 That’s apples to rocket ships. 😅 But considering Rankine Steam cycles get theoretical max about 33% of input heat (due to latent heat of condensation and that’s without any regenerative boiler feedwater preheat, air fuel preheat, etc) and then 40% isentropic efficiency (considering the turbine as is) we’re looking at 13.2% thermal efficiency with steam. A more apt comparison for the TesTur would be something an individual can actually purchase, like 1-5kW piston gas generators that you can get from Home Depot or Lowe’s. These get 15-22% thermal efficiency off the plant floor. Good luck getting that 1 year down the line or later with all those moving parts. Also for reference, industry standard for micro bladed gas turbines is 25% thermal to electrical. Whole system efficiency can go higher in Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system, but alas the TesTur would see the same whole system efficiency increase in a CHP Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). In the TesTur you gotta replace…? 🤔bearings…? And still even then, only maybe 🤷♂️ depending on how good of bearings, balance, lubing, cooling. The TesTur, and other bladed turbines, only have one moving part. 🔥
@@michailchoursoulidis2445 So if those piston generators drop efficiency, even at all, the TesTur on its worst day is competitive with a gasoline piston engine electric generator.🤓😬🤷♂️ And the TesTur can handle any fuel that can burn, even solid particulate fuels like powdered saw dust, pulverized coal, powdered iron, biomass, etc. (noting the number of those that can be acquired without spending money… 🤑 opening up “low monetary cost”, even carbon neutral, fuel options for MILLIONS around the world) We have to remember that the TesTur doesn’t have to be the holy grail to be worth using if we have free fuels readily available like biomass, and even waste heat already being dumped out into the air and not used for anything. The TesTur just has to be a viable option for some to be worth doing.
Even more, the mere fact that I’m using a low temp fluid for my 40% isentropic efficiency calculation means my TesTur efficiency is severely limited by thermodynamics and fluid dynamics. Increasing temps will automatically increase my turbines efficiency. This is because gasses have an increasing viscosity trend as you increase the temperature. This leads to increased isentropic efficiencies in the TesTur from reduced slip on the discs. (Meanwhile, we’re already talking about a piston engine using combustion temps as is.) Whereas bladed turbines see the increased viscosity as an increase in drag loss through the turbine blades. So we can’t always count on seeing increased isentropic efficiencies in a bladed turbine in practice when we go from low temp to a high temp. Again, to reiterate, this increase in viscosity in the TesTur only works to enhance the working action of the TesTur. (That being viscous adhesion to the disc faces increasing torque.) That’s all on top of the increased thermodynamic efficiencies of using a higher temp elastic fluid too! 🤓
The disc spacing for room temp gasses is not going to be the same for combustion temp gasses/steam because the viscosity of either increases by 3x fold. And I’ve designed these spaces for a higher temp fluid with a slightly higher viscosity so these will inherently be too wide at the current temperatures being used. So as we increase temps along with all these other really easy to fix mechanical issues (that only are a thing because I’m building this in my garage on a junk cnc machine) I have no doubt we will see more than competitive isentropic efficiencies compared to bladed turbines, let alone whole system thermal efficiencies that are through the roof. This is because of the heat recovery systems that can be added with the cost savings of using a TesTur vs a VERY expensive, and in my opinion, relatively delicate bladed turbine. Just getting tighter casing clearance with the turbine should give me at least 20% points back on efficiency putting my testur at the 60% range. Coming in with a 19% thermal efficiency in a Rankine steam system without any kind of thermal recoup.
what has been the longest run time?
Hey thanks for asking. A few minutes because the tanks are only so big.
More steam and combustion tests coming soon!
I just got my stainless steel capable CNC machine up and running so I just gotta finish pure turbine orders and then start cutting out some stainless prototypes.
looking forward to see your new stuff. I'm interested with this tech.
Where do you buy the generators? I've been looking for 600W generators for a long time
Have you looked for brushless DC motors in that power range and maybe use them as generators?
Do you think a Tesla turbine can be put inside of a rotating detonation engine to extract power for the compressor?
can the turbine be a motor ,put some magnet or change the disk to disk pcb motor