Very cool, I am looking forward to the experiments that are sure to come. In a world of non sense, you make a huge difference in my day to day life. Thanks Rob, cheers brother.
the main thing is the low-pressure air flow. that is important if you want to make it for home use which is what I'm shooting for. when you enclose the turbine completely, you get a higher rpm. with the higher rpm, it starts sucking in more air, and higher rpms is the results. I'm working using air bearings instead of regular bearings. I don't have a 3-d printer so it takes a little while for each new stage. Thanks for the video.
Tommy, if you need access to a 3D printer, please let me know. I am in Edinburgh and will gladly help with projects that aid in these wonderful ways of producing localized power sources.
@@michaelmarino7216 thanks for the offer, but I live in Texas. I don't mind describing my design if you would like. It is nothing more than a Darwin wind catcher and a tesla turbine. I've just used items I had from around my house, as parts. 2 78rpm records for the magnets. 8 CDs for the turbine. balls attached to the ends of the shaft for my air bearings. A funnel connects the two housing together.
@@Jon-fs2zj not at the moment. I'm still putting together my second prototype after the first one caught on fire, and that was with an 8mph wind. I described my design to Michael Marino if you want to take a look at it. I found that you have to use a chimney flue concept to regulate the out flow of the air to prevent it from running away and catching on fire.
Been impressed ever since learning about Tesla's turbine (seem's like an improvising improvement). I can't keep up with U, every time I get ready 2 build something U "upstage" yourself! I' m still mucking about doing it with solar and steam, as I have lots of sun and water around here!!!
Hello there, found your channel today. I must say that what you do is priceless. I thought of doing a turbine just like that months ago but I don't have the means of achieving what you just did. I'm trully amazed and binge watching all your videos 😂
Your ability to turn ideas into real objects over such short timespans is quite impressive. 🙂 Does the shaft need a keyway to keep all the discs driving it efficiently?
I love watching your videos! As a mechanical engineer and tinkerer, i love to invent things and solve problems. So it is particularly enjoyable to watch you take simple concepts and prove (or disprove) them. I would like to comment about the Tesla turbine, however, and something you seem to overlook. Maybe you know, maybe you don’t? There is a design element of the TT that goes beyond blowing air over discs and having them spin. The design, with the outlet at the center, specifically creates a fight between the mass of air and pressure differential pushing the air toward the center outlet, and the centrifugal action driving the air away from the center, like a tug-of-war. At some point, the turbine goes “critical” when the energy level being trapped inside reaches crazy levels, and the turbine speed, and thus kinetic energy, goes off the charts. I’ve seen videos of TT’s made with music cd’s which go critical and suddenly hit five-figure speeds and the cd’s come apart. Would be interested to know if there is some way to channel the air into the turbine in a way that causes this effect?
I love the new twist of tesla's turbine! The one biggist factor in how well it works is taking into account the fluid you are using and spacing the platters based on the boundary layer behavior. Nikola built his for steam which is about two and a half millimeters, " I am a yank so I could be off a bit on that", but air is a lot less viscous, might want to see if a millimeter or less gap between your disk will increase your spin for you.
A nozzle across the whole of the disc arrangement and someone else suggested the nozzle angled which I’m thinking is a good idea. So I’m afraid Robert you will still have to play about with angles a bit but this is really neat . Making moulds so the disc could be cast with your graphene reinforced casein plastic They done really well to give you their 3d printers you are certainly putting them to good use
On the supply side have a large plenum so there's no nozzle arrangement at all, just some inlet guide vanes. The plenum is pressurized. In this way the pressurized air is more efficiently in contact with all the turbine surfaces as it flows to low pressure. The outlet has an exhaust pipe and a valve on the exhaust is the throttle.
Very nice idea! I have the intuition that the dimensions of the cones should divide into phi or phi-1. The height divided by the radius or diameter giving a phi ratio should help to produce phi spirals within the moving medium... Maybe it can increase the efficiency overall.
The principal of the Tesla turbine hinges on the surface tension of the fluid medium. Gases have a low surface tension and, as such, will provide little torque to the discs. Liquids offer a higher surface tension and therefore, transmit a higher torque to the discs.
I was wondering how long it would take you to figure that one out. Now, magnetic bearings and a feedback system on the output and you have a combination of Tesla and Schauberger for the win.
I'd love to see this hooked up to one of your your twisted serpent generator coils and a maglev bearing. Very interested to see what power it could generate.
This is revolutionary, not sure if this would be feasible but this may be the answer to very effective power generation through parabolic solar concentrators using an oil medium
I'd love to see comparisons for different disk diameters. If you have turbine like this or a lot of the other ones you've built, a shorter wider turbine (larger diameter) will produce more torque from the same wind input but may make less speed. At high speeds, the disks experience more force, but a tall narrow turbine (like some of the stacked Savonius models you've played with) put a lot of stress on the central bearing. I've never seen a relatively large-diameter Tesla turbine. Granted, the RPMs tend to be very high, so that would mean a lot of stress at the rim, but a comparison of performance would be interesting.
This is fantastic, Rob! However, now that you have that outer casing worked out, could you use it with a pack of flat disks and measure the rotational speed again for comparison? I guess to make all other factor equal, it should be the same number of disks too.
This has some interesting potential in cold steam generation systems using the thermal difference between the inside and the outside of a dwelling in cold climates.
On the exhaust side of a turbocharger it might be efficient for lowering exhaust back pressure, especially if it is installed on an application with one or two catalytic converters. What about coating the discs, so the drive turbine becomes a converter too? Might be great for improving efficiency and economy of cars, small planes, and almost anything except a diesel or a race application.
Perfect timing....my printer should be here soon and I was looking for a tesla turbine housing to print. I was going to use hard drive platters, but I'll have a look at this.
I’d be interested in how much torque and power it could produce so that you could perhaps generate electricity from compressed air. As always you get nothing free, so you’d have to limit the current drawn so the back emf doesn’t stall the turbine. Nice job, I’ve downloaded Tinkercad so I might send for some parts from one of the online 3D printers, as I don’t have one myself. Thanks for the videos!
Would the control be to print 10 flat tesla discs and compare with the hyperbolic discs? It would give an indication of the improvement in performance. Great videos - i love them and your enthusiasm and joy.
Outstanding! A word of caution though. If you are going to throw some serious air through there you need to bear in mind what the forces are with that plastic spinning at 40K+ rpm. They may only be plastic, but plastic travelling at those kinds of speed carry some energy and if it fails would turn a good day bad very quickly. Being a parabolic curve will give it some strength but the forces will not be in line with the parabola!
The only problem is deformation at high RPM. Those cones will want to become flat as they spin faster and faster. This is why many home-made Tesla turbines fail - and is the problem Tesla himself experienced - deformation at high RPM.
What if, instead of directing all the air that passes through the turbine to only one side, you’d split it both sides, perhaps decreasing internal pressure and maybe increasing the turbine speed?!? Could that be?
Not sure if this is a completely original innovation or not (and as he says, if Tesla would have had a 3d prtinter…), but kudos to Robert Murray-Smith for popularizing it and making it widely accessible and tinkerable. Great channel!
I thought about this years ago... and it's effective in the lower RPM range. However, the issue arises with thinner plates and/or higher plate count. In a typical bladeless turbine, you can run much thinner discs and higher RPM, because the counter forces are contained radially, while axial forces are limited to minor deviations in pressure between the plates. Some may argue the same is present here... but the G-forces exerted at the circumference of the discs are extremely high, at an angle significantly offset from the tensile plane.
Hey I love your concept with a Tesla turbine it was designed with steel plates really close together I think if you were to decrease the space between the plates and add five or so and instead of having the inlet coming out of 90° angle come in at a 45° angle for the center of the cone you would increase the RPMs I don't have a 3D printer😮
@3:00 if you created pencil shaving type cones, and interlaced them together so they overlap inside and around eachother, i feel this would create alot more efficiency if done correctly.
Add the wind turbine you created for a boat the rotor section and add that to the output end to see of that would improve output over the turbine itself
The thing about Tesla turbines is that they work in reverse, spin the stack of discs/cones/whatever-you-call-them and it should blow air out of your inlet pipe. This should give some idea of efficiency as both the input rpm and output airflow are easy to measure.
Here's an idea I've had in my head for some time now. Ram Pump into a Tesla Turbine. Use metal plates. The "hammer" effect of the ram pumps could be absorbed by the mass of the metal plates. Thus the output would see a smaller wave as the water to air intervals continues. Thus a micro-hydro off of a mechanical (no electricity) pump. I was thinking of having like 4 pumps. And trying to run them at alternating intervals. Just a thought.
I noticed if a vacuum in on the exhaust end it increases efficiency. Problem is ice build up on the exhaust side. But if the hair dryer were inline and the hair dryer intake were hooked up to the exhaust that would work for a while to see how fast it would go. If the exhaust side only were hooked up to the intake of a compressor, with the turbine to free air it would run on vacuum only from a vacuum cleaner or compressor intake.
I find this extremely fascinating. I suppose when you are drawing air from the exhaust, it cases the air to lose significant amounts of pressure while maintaining volume, thus cooling the air. it also makes me wonder if you could feed the exhaust back to the intake, but heat it with a flame and create a kind of gas turbine engine
@@jsh111 They have a thing called a cold gun. It takes advantage of this, makes hot and cold air. A small one costs $20 bucks. To run the Exhaust back into the intake: look at a diesel truck exhaust pipes that pumps air into the exhaust system. I think they call it a Venturi. So a very large cone on the intake and the exhaust shooting air into the cone would suck the atmosphere air into the intake.
Try Multiple inlets of air and closing off the outer diameter of discs but not to the air inlets. I suspect the air is pushing on the concave wall rather than flowing like a tornado. Try a hollow disc between each rotor that delivers the air to each rotor at different levels of the cup of the rotor as to creat gear or vari drive torque. So multie inlets in around the out side of the unit into the hollow disc that don’t rotate, As the hollow disc will deliver the multi nozzle air to the rotor cups. This is not a blue print and not 100% comprehensive but that should get you going in a commercial industrial design.
I was thinking, instead of a pencil shaving type of cone spiral for air flow intake, perhaps if you took a pencil shaving spiral and cut it into specific spiral lengths, and overlaid separated loops of
wow worked better than i thought it would, would probably be easy enough to press out of a metal plate with say a form and a hammer for a harder wearing one
I'm not sure that shaped disc is a real good solution. My calculations from years ago for Tesla turbines showed that given a reasonable drop of pressure across the nozzle then the air velocity gets very high indeed. Given these turbines work most efficiently with a particular "slip" between the air speed and the surface speed of the disc- then the pressure drop determines the ideal rpm for a disc of a given diameter. When you do this calculation, you realise that the rpm is close to the strain limit for typical materials (for example stainless steel- given the temperature of say steam). Thus, putting any sort of a shape to these discs will seriously effect their ability to withstand the centripetal forces involved while maintaining the close tolerance between them and the casing. Of course, these high performances don't need to be targeted, however the whole point of the Tesla turbine is to exploit the opportunity of the extra efficiency that they offer. Otherwise, you might more usefully just build a paddlewheel.
It seems like the shape turns the turbine into a lower velocity, higher torque turbine which is a step in the right direction for making it useful, and reduces the speed requirement for the discs. So the question would be is there any disc profile which has a higher maximum output power than flat discs, or at least one that shifts the torque curve to a more usable range? What if the discs were curved only slightly, like an amount equal to their thickness? I know many people have had the idea to use conical or curved discs but I don't know how many actually got around to building it.
I'm not sure I understand how the disc shape would have an impact on torque. The same impact on the duration that the fluid spends between the discs can be achieved by changing the exhaust pressure. However, most of the torque is generated on the outside 1/3 of the disc radius so if you were to maximise this you might curve the disc like a hockey stick. But again this compromises structural integrity. Tesla suggested applying a vacuum to the exhaust to increase efficiency. Theoretical performance drops quickly below a more conventional bladed design when you stray from the optimum parameters.
Well said, some weeks ago i requested a small demonstration on the principals of the tesla turbine, and this was a poor attempt to answer said question. Disappointed..
Some years ago I made a few of these turbines. I was attracted to them because I felt I could make a turbine in contrast to a turbine wheel of a jet engine or a turbo. Aluminum housings, steel shaft, stainless discs and spacers (photo etched). What I learned was useful, but it was a bit of a waste of time. There are two phases of a turbine- the phase I was focused on- turning the rushing fluid into rotary motion- but this only occurs after you have converted the pressure of your incoming supply into velocity. This is usually achieved by a convergent/divergent nozzle. It turns out, this is a very specialized science, and at the scale of the turbines I was making- a HIGH precision part. What was worse, was that for a Tesla turbine, these nozzles need to be of a rectangular cross section, so conventional tables are not that useful- the high surface area to cross section and its expansion asymmetry are all barriers to efficiency. The nozzle design was by far the biggest barrier to me. I tried various designs but all had poor efficiency. I got stuck. In small devices, steam or compressed air gets very fast and so do the rpms of the turbines. You quickly end up realizing you need some specialist alloys to manage the heat and forces. In addition, the nozzles are optimised for a particular pressure drop and are not efficient over a range of pressure/flows. Finally, because they are small, they operate in the turbulent flow state and again this looses efficiency when you are trying to garner the Coanda effect of surface adhesion. Its all about fluid velocity; the goal is to convert all the pressure into velocity. The power available to the turbine is related to 1/2mv2. So the nozzle must deliver the maximum v. If you want to make a Tesla Turbine to do actual work then my advice is to work out how to get the incoming at the maximum velocity first before you start on the easy bit (the turbine itself). The single thing you should note when looking at the turbines that Tesla himself built- is the diameter of the inlet pipe. They are huge. These turbines are power dense, but that means they require LOTS of steam or air or water. They are brilliant, but beyond me.
Can this be combined with the serpentine rotor to spin inside the Darwin wind turbine housing, in counter rotation to dual magnetic flywheels. With magnetic bearing, and ball point pen backup spacer rides. Doubling the field strength and increased efficiency?
Try putting another turbine on the outlet in reverse. I watched a video of a guy that did this with his Tesla turbine. He was able to recover a substantial amount of efficiently. When the air exits the second turbine it’s at a relatively lower pressure helping draw more air from the first turbine. At least that how I understood it. I watch the video awhile ago so I don’t remember what his channel was called, but he has a ton of videos.
Thats impressive! With a few extra tweak you might get 7000rmp? If you have something like dual flow? Working on both suction and compression? High pressure inlet negative pressure outlet with an air multiplayer on it? Depending on how much you want it to spin it? Attached to an aeromine? That works like crazy? Especially if your collection is from large area? And focusing it through a tiny area? It should the create a feed back loop? Much like how trees generate a negative pressure to bring in the winds and rains? Get this right? and bingo!
untill 3 weeks ago i had not heard about Tesla plates snice leaving school and now including yours i have seen 3 videos in the last 3 weeks. it makes me wounder how many designs from years ago maybe worth visiting with todays tools and knolage?
Mate, drive it and use it as a pump. If it's any good, turn your duscharge nozzle parrallel with the shaft and use the pump to propel a craft (toy car or toy boat in water). Maybe have a few discharge nozzles. You could even try using it to generate lift, have your discharge nozzles at a rotary angle around the shaft to reduce the spin of the housing. I want to have a crack at this but dont really know where to get started! Your tinkercad files and find someone with a good 3d printer i suppose!
Yes, but it will take a lot more development to make a prototype that is worth measuring the performance of. The disc spacing needs optimized, and other optimal paramters need determined.
Already been done. There’s plenty of regular disc Tesla turbines that have been shown to work and push a load. Everyone says “it’ll slow down if you put a load on it!” Yeah so does EVERY engine if it’s idling and a load is out on it and the throttle isn’t opened up 🤭 Ever let out the clutch on… we’ll any engine without giving it some gas at the same time? 🤔 Yes it’s possible to feather the clutch and not use the throttle if done really slowly. But I think you catch my point.
@@keantoken6433 incorrect, work performed can be measured with the current prototype. I didn't ask for a production post prototype measurement. It's always worth measuring.
Centrifugal forces at design rpm will flare the disks and increase their diameter and crash the case. There comes a point when the rotor goes efficient and converts energy nearly 100%. Conical disks will need some girdle to keep it all together. This will decrease radial inflow.
@2:40 This design with the air blower isnt efficient.. The spacing would be good for water probably, but for air, i think you would need to reduce the spacing more between the blades...
Love this! Makes me wonder if it will work in reverse... Tesla turbines could be used as a turbine or a vacuum pump... would this setup create a vacuum? just put a vacuum cleaner on the end rather than a hair dryer and see if that makes the disks spin.
I'm playing around with the idea of compressing the air as it comes out of the turbine so you could get live generation and air battery charging at once from the same wind, but all done mechanically.
Should print a stack of flat discs and see how the two tests compare. Then print a squirrel cage or other common alternative and see how that compares.
Could you reprint your disks so that the center support blades act as an impeller, such as the power turbine blades in a gas turbine? As the air spins around and the flow path tightens inward, it “should” impart more energy on the disks.
Robert so I was thinking about how the Tesla turbine works as a compressor if you spin the shaft. If you stored the compressed air as a battery and then fed it back into the turbine to spin the motor (dc) you could then recover some of the electric power. Initial power could be solar or wind.
Would the shape of the discs be a concern at extreme high revolutions due to centrifugal forces in play? Failure could be spectacular. Could the effect of the parabolic cone be replicated by engraving a male/female spiral patterns on flat discs similar to a snail shell spiral that gets tighter closer to the center?
Super Sweet!!! I Lose a lot of the rotational character with the flat gray filament prints. Using another filament color(s) might show up on camera more effectively. Or maybe just a Stripe or 2 with a Black marker on the Spinny Bits. I wonder if you could plug in some flow simulations on the 3D models. Does TinkerCAD have physics plugins? Cheers!
My fitst thought was Viktor Schaubergers Repulsine. Mr. Smith, if you havent yet, please look up for Viktor Schaubergers inventions. There's probably a way to put Teslas and Schaubergers Inventions into something spectacular and functioning together. 😊
Could @tesla put a couple of these in the front of their cars and generate extra power when driving highway speeds? Or would the force of the wind in a scoop overwhelm and counter any gain from the generators?
Maybe some of these can be cast from hypereutectic aluminum to prevent alot of thermal expansion, get the clearances tight, .010"-.020" to possibly get a efficient steam turbine, cat the disc and machine them, to a tight tolerance, use less steam to make power, less CFM, especially if a second turbine is designed to run off the exhaust of tge first, tuned to use the cooler steam under less pressure, less dense, and not restrict flow of the first, use a planetary reduction gear, and;3phase generator,
Thank you! Will these blades work with steam too, or do you need a different blade angle for those? (provided they are printed with a heat resistant material)
I think In order to say this design is better you need to print a standard Tesla turbine stacked disks and swap them into that housing and do a direct comparison with just the core being swapped.
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![Tesla Turbine v2.0 [3D Printed]](/img/1.gif)
Very cool, I am looking forward to the experiments that are sure to come. In a world of non sense, you make a huge difference in my day to day life. Thanks Rob, cheers brother.
I've seen this before. Harvard University patented it in 2024.
People had cone-disk Tesla turbines at least as far back as the 80s, but they're all at least a little different.
That tickled me 😄
2024 👀👀
😅
This could be very last time patents being violated ☝️😂
@@weedfreer yes he forgot he is a time traveler 😉
the main thing is the low-pressure air flow. that is important if you want to make it for home use which is what I'm shooting for. when you enclose the turbine completely, you get a higher rpm. with the higher rpm, it starts sucking in more air, and higher rpms is the results. I'm working using air bearings instead of regular bearings. I don't have a 3-d printer so it takes a little while for each new stage. Thanks for the video.
Hi Tommy do you have any videos you could share?
Tommy, if you need access to a 3D printer, please let me know. I am in Edinburgh and will gladly help with projects that aid in these wonderful ways of producing localized power sources.
@@michaelmarino7216 thanks for the offer, but I live in Texas. I don't mind describing my design if you would like. It is nothing more than a Darwin wind catcher and a tesla turbine. I've just used items I had from around my house, as parts. 2 78rpm records for the magnets. 8 CDs for the turbine. balls attached to the ends of the shaft for my air bearings. A funnel connects the two housing together.
@@Jon-fs2zj not at the moment. I'm still putting together my second prototype after the first one caught on fire, and that was with an 8mph wind. I described my design to Michael Marino if you want to take a look at it. I found that you have to use a chimney flue concept to regulate the out flow of the air to prevent it from running away and catching on fire.
Been impressed ever since learning about Tesla's turbine (seem's like an improvising improvement). I can't keep up with U, every time I get ready 2 build something U "upstage" yourself! I' m still mucking about doing it with solar and steam, as I have lots of sun and water around here!!!
I love your channel and love anything involved with Tesla. ❤❤ you've doubled it. Another great content. Thank you!
Hello there, found your channel today. I must say that what you do is priceless. I thought of doing a turbine just like that months ago but I don't have the means of achieving what you just did. I'm trully amazed and binge watching all your videos 😂
Your ability to turn ideas into real objects over such short timespans is quite impressive. 🙂
Does the shaft need a keyway to keep all the discs driving it efficiently?
I love watching your videos! As a mechanical engineer and tinkerer, i love to invent things and solve problems. So it is particularly enjoyable to watch you take simple concepts and prove (or disprove) them.
I would like to comment about the Tesla turbine, however, and something you seem to overlook. Maybe you know, maybe you don’t? There is a design element of the TT that goes beyond blowing air over discs and having them spin.
The design, with the outlet at the center, specifically creates a fight between the mass of air and pressure differential pushing the air toward the center outlet, and the centrifugal action driving the air away from the center, like a tug-of-war.
At some point, the turbine goes “critical” when the energy level being trapped inside reaches crazy levels, and the turbine speed, and thus kinetic energy, goes off the charts.
I’ve seen videos of TT’s made with music cd’s which go critical and suddenly hit five-figure speeds and the cd’s come apart.
Would be interested to know if there is some way to channel the air into the turbine in a way that causes this effect?
It amazing what your hot air can do. Loving the great work.
It's most probably cold air from the dryer.
I love the new twist of tesla's turbine! The one biggist factor in how well it works is taking into account the fluid you are using and spacing the platters based on the boundary layer behavior. Nikola built his for steam which is about two and a half millimeters, " I am a yank so I could be off a bit on that", but air is a lot less viscous, might want to see if a millimeter or less gap between your disk will increase your spin for you.
It would be interesting to see if a more well space disc set would work well for water generating purposes then, given the much larger viscosity
A nozzle across the whole of the disc arrangement and someone else suggested the nozzle angled which I’m thinking is a good idea. So I’m afraid Robert you will still have to play about with angles a bit but this is really neat . Making moulds so the disc could be cast with your graphene reinforced casein plastic
They done really well to give you their 3d printers you are certainly putting them to good use
Hello Robert, I just got a tele_gram me message from you. Can you tell if it is real or is someone tampering with your good name and logo?
it's not me i never contact folks directly
Love your work and your videos!! 👍
Great Work Earthling
Bless Up Star ❤
On the supply side have a large plenum so there's no nozzle arrangement at all, just some inlet guide vanes. The plenum is pressurized. In this way the pressurized air is more efficiently in contact with all the turbine surfaces as it flows to low pressure.
The outlet has an exhaust pipe and a valve on the exhaust is the throttle.
Very nice idea! I have the intuition that the dimensions of the cones should divide into phi or phi-1. The height divided by the radius or diameter giving a phi ratio should help to produce phi spirals within the moving medium... Maybe it can increase the efficiency overall.
Good job . Like the ideas.
The principal of the Tesla turbine hinges on the surface tension of the fluid medium.
Gases have a low surface tension and, as such, will provide little torque to the discs.
Liquids offer a higher surface tension and therefore, transmit a higher torque to the discs.
I was wondering how long it would take you to figure that one out. Now, magnetic bearings and a feedback system on the output and you have a combination of Tesla and Schauberger for the win.
I'd love to see this hooked up to one of your your twisted serpent generator coils and a maglev bearing. Very interested to see what power it could generate.
This is revolutionary, not sure if this would be feasible but this may be the answer to very effective power generation through parabolic solar concentrators using an oil medium
I'd love to see comparisons for different disk diameters. If you have turbine like this or a lot of the other ones you've built, a shorter wider turbine (larger diameter) will produce more torque from the same wind input but may make less speed. At high speeds, the disks experience more force, but a tall narrow turbine (like some of the stacked Savonius models you've played with) put a lot of stress on the central bearing.
I've never seen a relatively large-diameter Tesla turbine. Granted, the RPMs tend to be very high, so that would mean a lot of stress at the rim, but a comparison of performance would be interesting.
This is fantastic, Rob! However, now that you have that outer casing worked out, could you use it with a pack of flat disks and measure the rotational speed again for comparison? I guess to make all other factor equal, it should be the same number of disks too.
Need to do the flat disc version for comparison.
Needs flat disc for comparison.
Cool idea and demonstration.........would be interesting to see what the efficiency measurements come out at.
So you'll use the same shape for the collector as the rotor 😊 Cool!
This has some interesting potential in cold steam generation systems using the thermal difference between the inside and the outside of a dwelling in cold climates.
On the exhaust side of a turbocharger it might be efficient for lowering exhaust back pressure, especially if it is installed on an application with one or two catalytic converters. What about coating the discs, so the drive turbine becomes a converter too? Might be great for improving efficiency and economy of cars, small planes, and almost anything except a diesel or a race application.
Rob have a look at the Sist Disk dates back to the Pyramids Print some those and see what happens 😁👍
Perfect timing....my printer should be here soon and I was looking for a tesla turbine housing to print. I was going to use hard drive platters, but I'll have a look at this.
Could you print the disc? Mines doesnt print properly
@@solosequenosenada7096 I got sidetracked w/ other things and haven't tried it yet.
it would be very interesting to print some flat discs as well and see how they perform in comparison
Oh I'm having that! Thank you sir!
it's all yours mate
I’d be interested in how much torque and power it could produce so that you could perhaps generate electricity from compressed air. As always you get nothing free, so you’d have to limit the current drawn so the back emf doesn’t stall the turbine. Nice job, I’ve downloaded Tinkercad so I might send for some parts from one of the online 3D printers, as I don’t have one myself. Thanks for the videos!
Good stuff buddy!
Would the control be to print 10 flat tesla discs and compare with the hyperbolic discs? It would give an indication of the improvement in performance. Great videos - i love them and your enthusiasm and joy.
Outstanding!
A word of caution though.
If you are going to throw some serious air through there you need to bear in mind what the forces are with that plastic spinning at 40K+ rpm. They may only be plastic, but plastic travelling at those kinds of speed carry some energy and if it fails would turn a good day bad very quickly. Being a parabolic curve will give it some strength but the forces will not be in line with the parabola!
This is a great idea for a gravity fed water turbine if you can keep the flow laminar
Awesome!
The only problem is deformation at high RPM. Those cones will want to become flat as they spin faster and faster. This is why many home-made Tesla turbines fail - and is the problem Tesla himself experienced - deformation at high RPM.
You know that because of modern manufacturing processes, you can build to resist deformation?
If the air flow came in at the same angle as the slope of the plates, might that improve the result ?
Wow, nicely done
cheers mate
Nice improvement.
you are getting extremely efficient with tinkercad. impressive.
What if, instead of directing all the air that passes through the turbine to only one side, you’d split it both sides, perhaps decreasing internal pressure and maybe increasing the turbine speed?!? Could that be?
Tesla's turbine design was also known to make very quiet fans when run backwards. By spinning the shaft.
Brilliant
Not sure if this is a completely original innovation or not (and as he says, if Tesla would have had a 3d prtinter…), but kudos to Robert Murray-Smith for popularizing it and making it widely accessible and tinkerable.
Great channel!
I thought about this years ago... and it's effective in the lower RPM range. However, the issue arises with thinner plates and/or higher plate count. In a typical bladeless turbine, you can run much thinner discs and higher RPM, because the counter forces are contained radially, while axial forces are limited to minor deviations in pressure between the plates. Some may argue the same is present here... but the G-forces exerted at the circumference of the discs are extremely high, at an angle significantly offset from the tensile plane.
as the Tesla turbine has a problem regarding effectiveness in low rpm range and this improves it - i don't see why would give up on it?
Not a bad idea mate. It could work really well. Having a hyperbolic surface will retain the same air pressure on the discs all the way to the exhaust.
Hey I love your concept with a Tesla turbine it was designed with steel plates really close together I think if you were to decrease the space between the plates and add five or so and instead of having the inlet coming out of 90° angle come in at a 45° angle for the center of the cone you would increase the RPMs I don't have a 3D printer😮
Amazing
@3:00 if you created pencil shaving type cones, and interlaced them together so they overlap inside and around eachother, i feel this would create alot more efficiency if done correctly.
Add the wind turbine you created for a boat the rotor section and add that to the output end to see of that would improve output over the turbine itself
Just AMAZING
cheers mate
The thing about Tesla turbines is that they work in reverse, spin the stack of discs/cones/whatever-you-call-them and it should blow air out of your inlet pipe.
This should give some idea of efficiency as both the input rpm and output airflow are easy to measure.
Here's an idea I've had in my head for some time now. Ram Pump into a Tesla Turbine. Use metal plates. The "hammer" effect of the ram pumps could be absorbed by the mass of the metal plates. Thus the output would see a smaller wave as the water to air intervals continues. Thus a micro-hydro off of a mechanical (no electricity) pump. I was thinking of having like 4 pumps. And trying to run them at alternating intervals. Just a thought.
I noticed if a vacuum in on the exhaust end it increases efficiency. Problem is ice build up on the exhaust side.
But if the hair dryer were inline and the hair dryer intake were hooked up to the exhaust that would work for a while to see how fast it would go.
If the exhaust side only were hooked up to the intake of a compressor, with the turbine to free air it would run on vacuum only from a vacuum cleaner or compressor intake.
I find this extremely fascinating. I suppose when you are drawing air from the exhaust, it cases the air to lose significant amounts of pressure while maintaining volume, thus cooling the air. it also makes me wonder if you could feed the exhaust back to the intake, but heat it with a flame and create a kind of gas turbine engine
@@jsh111
They have a thing called a cold gun. It takes advantage of this, makes hot and cold air. A small one costs $20 bucks.
To run the Exhaust back into the intake: look at a diesel truck exhaust pipes that pumps air into the exhaust system.
I think they call it a Venturi. So a very large cone on the intake and the exhaust shooting air into the cone would suck the atmosphere air into the intake.
This invention is Tesla + Schauberger (hyperbolic cone)
Try Multiple inlets of air and closing off the outer diameter of discs but not to the air inlets. I suspect the air is pushing on the concave wall rather than flowing like a tornado. Try a hollow disc between each rotor that delivers the air to each rotor at different levels of the cup of the rotor as to creat gear or vari drive torque. So multie inlets in around the out side of the unit into the hollow disc that don’t rotate, As the hollow disc will deliver the multi nozzle air to the rotor cups. This is not a blue print and not 100% comprehensive but that should get you going in a commercial industrial design.
That's amazing.
Could you put a second generator and blade together more power or would the back pressure slow the Tesla rpm?
I was thinking, instead of a pencil shaving type of cone spiral for air flow intake, perhaps if you took a pencil shaving spiral and cut it into specific spiral lengths, and overlaid separated loops of
I've wondered for years if hot air raising out of a hot (Florida) attic could be used for generating power.
wow worked better than i thought it would, would probably be easy enough to press out of a metal plate with say a form and a hammer for a harder wearing one
I'm not sure that shaped disc is a real good solution.
My calculations from years ago for Tesla turbines showed that given a reasonable drop of pressure across the nozzle then the air velocity gets very high indeed.
Given these turbines work most efficiently with a particular "slip" between the air speed and the surface speed of the disc- then the pressure drop determines the ideal rpm for a disc of a given diameter.
When you do this calculation, you realise that the rpm is close to the strain limit for typical materials (for example stainless steel- given the temperature of say steam).
Thus, putting any sort of a shape to these discs will seriously effect their ability to withstand the centripetal forces involved while maintaining the close tolerance between them and the casing.
Of course, these high performances don't need to be targeted, however the whole point of the Tesla turbine is to exploit the opportunity of the extra efficiency that they offer.
Otherwise, you might more usefully just build a paddlewheel.
It seems like the shape turns the turbine into a lower velocity, higher torque turbine which is a step in the right direction for making it useful, and reduces the speed requirement for the discs. So the question would be is there any disc profile which has a higher maximum output power than flat discs, or at least one that shifts the torque curve to a more usable range? What if the discs were curved only slightly, like an amount equal to their thickness? I know many people have had the idea to use conical or curved discs but I don't know how many actually got around to building it.
I'm not sure I understand how the disc shape would have an impact on torque. The same impact on the duration that the fluid spends between the discs can be achieved by changing the exhaust pressure. However, most of the torque is generated on the outside 1/3 of the disc radius so if you were to maximise this you might curve the disc like a hockey stick. But again this compromises structural integrity. Tesla suggested applying a vacuum to the exhaust to increase efficiency.
Theoretical performance drops quickly below a more conventional bladed design when you stray from the optimum parameters.
oh wow - you are the first comment i read where you get it - awesome mate
Well said, some weeks ago i requested a small demonstration on the principals of the tesla turbine, and this was a poor attempt to answer said question. Disappointed..
Some years ago I made a few of these turbines. I was attracted to them because I felt I could make a turbine in contrast to a turbine wheel of a jet engine or a turbo.
Aluminum housings, steel shaft, stainless discs and spacers (photo etched).
What I learned was useful, but it was a bit of a waste of time.
There are two phases of a turbine- the phase I was focused on- turning the rushing fluid into rotary motion- but this only occurs after you have converted the pressure of your incoming supply into velocity. This is usually achieved by a convergent/divergent nozzle.
It turns out, this is a very specialized science, and at the scale of the turbines I was making- a HIGH precision part.
What was worse, was that for a Tesla turbine, these nozzles need to be of a rectangular cross section, so conventional tables are not that useful- the high surface area to cross section and its expansion asymmetry are all barriers to efficiency.
The nozzle design was by far the biggest barrier to me.
I tried various designs but all had poor efficiency. I got stuck.
In small devices, steam or compressed air gets very fast and so do the rpms of the turbines.
You quickly end up realizing you need some specialist alloys to manage the heat and forces.
In addition, the nozzles are optimised for a particular pressure drop and are not efficient over a range of pressure/flows.
Finally, because they are small, they operate in the turbulent flow state and again this looses efficiency when you are trying to garner the Coanda effect of surface adhesion.
Its all about fluid velocity; the goal is to convert all the pressure into velocity.
The power available to the turbine is related to 1/2mv2. So the nozzle must deliver the maximum v.
If you want to make a Tesla Turbine to do actual work then my advice is to work out how to get the incoming at the maximum velocity first before you start on the easy bit (the turbine itself).
The single thing you should note when looking at the turbines that Tesla himself built- is the diameter of the inlet pipe.
They are huge.
These turbines are power dense, but that means they require LOTS of steam or air or water.
They are brilliant, but beyond me.
Awesome
1st fatigue, 2nd cavitation... this shape proved to limit overall efficiency of TT. Only flat, large diameter discs can offer +80% efficiency.
What about closing one of holes on the side?
Have you ever looked at the company SpinLaunch? I love watching their updates and your videos on the Tesla turbine remind me of them.
Can this be combined with the serpentine rotor to spin inside the Darwin wind turbine housing, in counter rotation to dual magnetic flywheels. With magnetic bearing, and ball point pen backup spacer rides.
Doubling the field strength and increased efficiency?
Try putting another turbine on the outlet in reverse. I watched a video of a guy that did this with his Tesla turbine. He was able to recover a substantial amount of efficiently. When the air exits the second turbine it’s at a relatively lower pressure helping draw more air from the first turbine. At least that how I understood it. I watch the video awhile ago so I don’t remember what his channel was called, but he has a ton of videos.
407k you're well on your way :)
Im wondering if the centrifugal force on the cone shaped discs would cause them to warp and wobble. I think thats an issue even with the flat discs
Thats impressive! With a few extra tweak you might get 7000rmp? If you have something like dual flow? Working on both suction and compression? High pressure inlet negative pressure outlet with an air multiplayer on it? Depending on how much you want it to spin it? Attached to an aeromine? That works like crazy? Especially if your collection is from large area? And focusing it through a tiny area? It should the create a feed back loop? Much like how trees generate a negative pressure to bring in the winds and rains? Get this right? and bingo!
I would love to see this precision built and tested for efficiency/RPM vs a normal tesla turbine. I wonder what difference the curves make?
untill 3 weeks ago i had not heard about Tesla plates snice leaving school and now including yours i have seen 3 videos in the last 3 weeks.
it makes me wounder how many designs from years ago maybe worth visiting with todays tools and knolage?
That’s is awesome, im saving up for a 3D printer for myself, 👍✌️
Does the angle or the curvature of the blades have any added effect ?
Mate, drive it and use it as a pump.
If it's any good, turn your duscharge nozzle parrallel with the shaft and use the pump to propel a craft (toy car or toy boat in water). Maybe have a few discharge nozzles.
You could even try using it to generate lift, have your discharge nozzles at a rotary angle around the shaft to reduce the spin of the housing.
I want to have a crack at this but dont really know where to get started! Your tinkercad files and find someone with a good 3d printer i suppose!
Seeing successful rotation is merely the first step, put a load on it and measure actual work performed.
Yes, but it will take a lot more development to make a prototype that is worth measuring the performance of. The disc spacing needs optimized, and other optimal paramters need determined.
Already been done. There’s plenty of regular disc Tesla turbines that have been shown to work and push a load.
Everyone says “it’ll slow down if you put a load on it!”
Yeah so does EVERY engine if it’s idling and a load is out on it and the throttle isn’t opened up 🤭
Ever let out the clutch on… we’ll any engine without giving it some gas at the same time? 🤔
Yes it’s possible to feather the clutch and not use the throttle if done really slowly. But I think you catch my point.
@@keantoken6433 incorrect, work performed can be measured with the current prototype. I didn't ask for a production post prototype measurement. It's always worth measuring.
Centrifugal forces at design rpm will flare the disks and increase their diameter and crash the case.
There comes a point when the rotor goes efficient and converts energy nearly 100%.
Conical disks will need some girdle to keep it all together. This will decrease radial inflow.
@2:40 This design with the air blower isnt efficient.. The spacing would be good for water probably, but for air, i think you would need to reduce the spacing more between the blades...
Hi Robert, You might perhaps have solved the stretching discs problem...
Make the center twist to form a vacuum up the center place it on top a teepee
I wonder what would happen if you selectively heated some of the discs could you turn something like that into an engine for example.
geniouse love you thanks
cheers mate
Love this! Makes me wonder if it will work in reverse... Tesla turbines could be used as a turbine or a vacuum pump... would this setup create a vacuum? just put a vacuum cleaner on the end rather than a hair dryer and see if that makes the disks spin.
I'm playing around with the idea of compressing the air as it comes out of the turbine so you could get live generation and air battery charging at once from the same wind, but all done mechanically.
Should print a stack of flat discs and see how the two tests compare. Then print a squirrel cage or other common alternative and see how that compares.
Could you reprint your disks so that the center support blades act as an impeller, such as the power turbine blades in a gas turbine?
As the air spins around and the flow path tightens inward, it “should” impart more energy on the disks.
Have you ever thought of stepping the little connecting bits of plastic on the inner part of the disc like stairs?
I think my concern w/ this is the rigidity of the disks. How much can they take before they are flexing out of shape?
Robert so I was thinking about how the Tesla turbine works as a compressor if you spin the shaft. If you stored the compressed air as a battery and then fed it back into the turbine to spin the motor (dc) you could then recover some of the electric power. Initial power could be solar or wind.
Would the shape of the discs be a concern at extreme high revolutions due to centrifugal forces in play?
Failure could be spectacular. Could the effect of the parabolic cone be replicated by engraving a male/female spiral patterns on flat discs similar to a snail shell spiral that gets tighter closer to the center?
Super Sweet!!!
I Lose a lot of the rotational character with the flat gray filament prints. Using another filament color(s) might show up on camera more effectively. Or maybe just a Stripe or 2 with a Black marker on the Spinny Bits.
I wonder if you could plug in some flow simulations on the 3D models. Does TinkerCAD have physics plugins?
Cheers!
My fitst thought was Viktor Schaubergers Repulsine. Mr. Smith, if you havent yet, please look up for Viktor Schaubergers inventions. There's probably a way to put Teslas and Schaubergers Inventions into something spectacular and functioning together. 😊
It would be Interesting to see how it compares to a Tesla Turbine of the same size.
What about a old leaf blower turbine ,was wondering if that would work good. Have a old one and was thinking of using it for a turbine
Could @tesla put a couple of these in the front of their cars and generate extra power when driving highway speeds? Or would the force of the wind in a scoop overwhelm and counter any gain from the generators?
Maybe some of these can be cast from hypereutectic aluminum to prevent alot of thermal expansion, get the clearances tight,
.010"-.020" to possibly get a efficient steam turbine, cat the disc and machine them, to a tight tolerance, use less steam to make power, less CFM, especially if a second turbine is designed to run off the exhaust of tge first, tuned to use the cooler steam under less pressure, less dense, and not restrict flow of the first, use a planetary reduction gear, and;3phase generator,
its just extending the working surface laterally rather than making bigger disks with larger radius?
Thank you! Will these blades work with steam too, or do you need a different blade angle for those? (provided they are printed with a heat resistant material)
I think In order to say this design is better you need to print a standard Tesla turbine stacked disks and swap them into that housing and do a direct comparison with just the core being swapped.