BOUNDARY-LAYER BREAKTHROUGH - THE TESLA BLADELESS TURBINE
Compiled by Jeffery A. Hayes
INTRODUCTION
Most people remember Nikola Tesla for his work and revelations in the field of
electrical energy and the invention of radio. However, Tesla had a life long
interest in developing a flying machine. Tesla had envisioned himself as the
first man that would fly. He had planned to build an aircraft that would operate
on electric motors. However, the first men who successfully flew an aircraft
used the reciprocating internal combustion engine. Though successful in
achieving flight, aircraft using these engines were dangerous and unpredictable,
due to the engine's lack of adequate power. Tesla turned his attention to
revamping the internal combustion engine so as to make flying safe for all and
minimize its environmental impact. Documented in this text is the result of
Tesla's endeavors and the resulting marvel of machines called the Bladeless
Boundary-Layer Turbine.
Although Tesla's dream for his engines application in aircraft was not realized
in his life time, if allowed to be used in aircraft today, it would provide a
quiet, safe, simple and efficient alternative to our supposedly advanced bladed
turbine aircraft engines. It has been estimated that an increase in fuel
efficiency of a factor of three could be realized in aircraft and thus
substantially reduce pollution. Not only this, the Bladeless Tesla Turbine
Engine can turn at much higher speeds with total safety. If a conventional
bladed turbine engine goes critical or fails, watch out, you have exploding
parts slicing through hydraulic lines, control surfaces and maybe even you. With
the Bladeless Tesla Turbine this is not a danger because it will not explode. If
it does go critical, as has been documented in tests at 85,000 rpm, the failed
component will not explode but implode into tiny pieces which are ejected
through the exhaust while the undamaged components continue to provide thrust to
keep you airborne. We. can only speculate on the human suffering that could and
should be averted.
The application of this amazing engine was not to be limited to aircraft. Tesla
was setting up plans to replace what he considered the wasteful, polluting,
inefficient and complicated reciprocating engine in all its applications,
including the automobile. Tesla's small but powerful engine has only one moving
part and is 95% efficient, which means tremendous mileage. It runs vibration
free and doesn't even require a muffler. Not only is this engine 95% efficient,
as compared to 25% efficiency or less of the conventional gas engine, it can run
efficiently on any fuel from sawdust to hydrogen with no wear on the internal
engine components. This engine's speed-torque characteristic allows full torque
at the bottom of the speed range eliminating the conventional shifting gear
transmission. This provides additional economy as the expensive, complicated and
wear prone transmission is eliminated.
Unlike most people of the time, Tesla was very concerned about the long range
environmental damage the reciprocating engines would create. He stressed over
and over how we must take the long range view and not step out of harmony with
our life support systems. Today the widening concern for Spaceship Earth and the
renewal of an old ethic "We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we
borrow it from our children" is slowly beginning to awaken people to the
concerns of Tesla.
Although the existence of the automobile on city streets dates back to the first
years of the century, its role as a contributor to air contamination did not
receive wide acceptance among scientists until the 60's. Factual evidence that
urban area smog was chemically related to automobile emissions had been produced
and acknowledged by scientific groups in the 1950's. Despite vehement
disagreement which ensued between government and the automotive industry on this
volatile issue, research and development programs were initiated by both groups
in an effort to identify the reciprocating internal combustion engine's sources
of pollution and determine what corrective action might be taken. Obviously
Tesla's ounce of prevention was not heeded, leaving us with well over the pound
required for a cure with nearly half of all air pollution caused by the
reciprocating internal combustion engine.
The Boundary Layer Turbine is not only an engine that is hard to comprehend by
our currently imposed standards, but can also be used as a pump with slight
modification. And like its cousin the engine, it has Herculean power. Unlike
conventional pumps that are easily damaged by contaminants, the Bladeless Tesla
Pump can handle particles and corrosives in stride as well as gases with no
cavitation effect that destroys, in short order, conventional type pumps.
These pumps and engines, though unknown to most, are available for commercial
sale. If large scale commercial production was implemented, these engines and
pumps would be extremely affordable due to their simplicity of manufacture,
longevity, almost total lack of maintenance and the added bonus that they
require no crank case oil.
Almost a quarter of the air pollution today comes from the coal being burned to
generate electricity. Fuel consumption, resulting in air pollution and acid
rain, could be significantly reduced simply by replacing the conventional blade
steam turbines currently used by utilities with the Bladeless Tesla Steam
Turbine. This also would have the added bonus of drastically reducing
maintenance. But the real solution lies in using low temperature wet steam
occurring naturally from the ground in the form of geothermal energy. This
energy would destroy a conventional bladed steam turbine, unless expensive steam
drying is employed. However, the Bladeless Tesla Steam Turbine requires no
drying and can be connected directly to the geothermal source. It has been
estimated that the geothermal potential in just Southern California alone, could
power the entire North American Continent with NO POLLUTION! Large oil companies
have comprehended the potential of geothermal energy and have purchased many of
these large tracks of prime geothermal land.
Due to the revolutionary concepts embodied in this engine, we can easily end the
so called energy crisis and dramatically reduce pollution. Even the vested
energy interests are beginning to understand that now is the time for change,
realizing their future health and wealth is directly linked to that of the
environment. You can't hide or buy your way out of a devastated planet There
must also be a move forward for the many misinformed environmentalists who see
our future as one of regression from technology instead of its proper usage.
Tesla from his 1919 autobiography, My Inventions:
"My alternating system of power transmission came at a psychological moment, as a long-sought answer to pressing industrial questions, and although considerable resistance had to be overcome and opposing interests reconciled, as usual, the commercial introduction could not be long delayed. Now, compare this situation with that confronting my turbine, for example. One should think that so simple and beautiful an invention, possessing many features of an ideal motor, should be adopted at once and, undoubtedly, it would under similar conditions. But the prospective effect of the rotating field was not to render worthless existing machinery; on the contrary, it was to give it additional value. The system lent itself to new enterprise as well as to improvement of the old. My turbine is an advance of a character entirely different. It is a radical departure in the sense that its success would mean the abandonment of the antiquated types of prime movers on which billions of dollars have been spent. Under such circumstances the progress must needs be slow and perhaps the greatest impediment is encountered in the prejudicial opinions created in the minds of experts by organized opposition."
H.G. Wells once said that future history will be a race between education and
catastrophe. This book is dedicated to the race for education.
Reprinted from: Boundary-Layer Breakthrough - The Tesla Bladeless Turbine pages
114-118.
Scientific American September 30, 1911, page 290
From the Complex to the Simple
A MARKED step was taken in the simplification of prime movers when Watt's
cumbersome beam engine, with its ingenious but elaborate parallel motion, gave
way to the present standard reciprocating type, with only piston rod, cross head
and connecting rod interposed between piston and crank. An even greater advance
toward ideal simplicity occurred when, after years of effort by inventors to
produce a practical rotary, Parsons brought out his compact, though costly,
turbine, in which the energy of the steam is developed on a zigzag path through
multitudinous rows of fixed and moving blades.
And now comes Mr. Tesla with a motor which bids fair to carry the steam engine
another long step toward the ideally simple prime mover - a motor in which the
fixed and revolving blades of the turbine give place to a set of steel disks of
simple and cheap construction. If the flow of steam in spiral curves between the
adjoining faces of flat disks is an efficient method of developing the energy of
the steam, the prime mover would certainly appear to have been at last reduced
to its simplest terms.
The further development of the unique turbine which we describe elsewhere will
be followed with close attention by the technical world. The results attained
with this small high-pressure unit are certainly flattering, and give reason to
believe that the addition of a low pressure turbine and a condenser would make
this type of turbine as highly efficient as it is simple and cheap in
construction and maintenance.
Scientific American September 30, 1911, page 296
The Rotary Heat Motor Reduced to its Simplest Terms
It will interest the readers of the Scientific American to that Nikola Tesla,
whose reputation must, naturally, stand upon the contribution he made to
electrical engineering when the art was yet in its comparative infancy, is by
training and choice a mechanical engineer, with a strong leaning to that branch
of it which is covered by the term "steam engineering." For several years past
he has devoted much of his attention to improvements in thermo-dynamic
conversion, and the result of his theories and practical experiments is to be
found in an entirely new form of prime movers shown in operation at the
waterside station of the New York Edison Company, who kindly placed the
facilities of their great plant at his disposal for carrying on experimental
work.
By the courtesy of the inventor, we are enabled to publish the accompanying
views, representing the testing plant at the Waterside station, which are the
first photographs of this interesting motor that have yet been made public.
The basic principle which determined Tesla's investigations was the well-known
fact that when a fluid (steam, gas or water) is used as a vehicle of energy, the
highest possible economy can be obtained only when the changes in velocity and
direction of the movement of the fluid are made as gradual and easy as possible.
In the present forms of turbines in which the energy is transmitted by pressure,
reaction or impact, as in the De Laval, Parsons, and Curtiss types, more or less
sudden changes both of speed and direction are involved, with consequent shocks,
vibration and destructive eddies. Furthermore, the
introduction of pistons, blades, buckets, and intercepting devices of this
general class, into the path of the fluid involves much delicate and difficult
mechanical construction which adds greatly to the cost both of production and
maintenance.
The desiderata in an ideal turbine group themselves under the heads of the
theoretical and the mechanical. The theoretically perfect turbine would be one
in which the fluid was so controlled from the inlet to the exhaust that its
energy was delivered to the driving shaft with the least possible losses due to
the mechanical means employed. The mechanically perfect turbine would be one
which combined simplicity and cheapness of construction, durability, ease and
rapidity of repairs, and a small ratio of weight and space occupied to the power
delivered on the shaft. Mr. Tesla maintains that in the turbine which forms the
subject of this article, he has carried the steam and gas motor a long step
forward toward the maximum attainable efficiency, both theoretical and
mechanical. That these claims are well founded is shown by the fact that in the
plant at the Edison station, he is securing an output of 200 horse-power from a
single-stage steam turbine with atmospheric exhaust, weighing less than 2 pounds
per horse-power, which is contained within a space measuring 2 feet by 3 feet,
by 2 feet in height, and which accomplishes these results with a thermal fall of
only 130 BTUs., that is, about one-third of the total drop available.
Furthermore, considered from the mechanical standpoint, the turbine is
astonishingly simple and economical in construction, and by the very nature of
its construction, should prove to possess such a durability and freedom from
wear and breakdown as to place it, in these respects, far in advance of any type
of steam or gas motor of the present day.
Briefly stated, Tesla's steam motor consists of a set of flat steel disks
mounted on a shaft and rotating within a casing, the steam entering with high
velocity at the periphery of the disks, flowing between them in free spiral
paths, and finally escaping through exhaust ports at their center. Instead of
developing the energy of the steam by pressure, reaction, or impact, on a series
of blades or vanes, Tesla depends upon the fluid properties of adhesion and
viscosity--the attraction of the steam to the faces of the disks and the
resistance of its particles to molecular separation combining in transmitting
the velocity energy of the motive fluid to the plates and the shaft.
By reference to the accompanying photographs and line drawings, it will be seen
that the turbine has a rotor A which in the present case consists of 25 flat
steel disks, one thirty-second of an inch in thickness, of hardened and
carefully tempered steel. The rotor as assembled is 3 1/2 inches wide on the
face, by 18 inches in diameter, and when the turbine is running at its maximum
working velocity, the material is never under a tensile stress exceeding 50,000
pounds per square inch. The rotor is mounted in a casing D, which is provided
with two inlet nozzles, B for use in running direct and B' for reversing.
Openings C are cut out at the central portion of the disks and these communicate
directly with exhaust ports formed in the side of the casing.
In operation, the steam, or gas, as the case may be is directed on the periphery
of the disks through the nozzle B (which may be diverging, straight or
converging), where more or less of its expansive energy is converted into
velocity energy. When the machine is at rest, the radial and tangential forces
due to the pressure and velocity of the steam cause it to travel in a rather
short curved path toward the central exhaust opening, as indicated by the full
black line in the accompanying diagram; but as the disks commence to rotate and
their speed increases, the steam travels in spiral paths the length of which
increases until, as in the case of the present turbine, the particles of the
fluid complete a number of turns around the shaft before reaching the exhaust,
covering in the meantime a lineal path some 12 to 16 feet in length. During its
progress from inlet to exhaust, the velocity and pressure of the steam are
reduced until it leaves the exhaust at 1 or 2 pounds gage pressure.
The resistance to the passage of the steam or gas between adjoining plates is
approximately proportionate to the square of the relative speed, which is at a
maximum toward the center of the disks and is equal to the tangential velocity
of the steam. Hence the resistance to radial escape is very great, being
furthermore enhanced by the centrifugal force acting outwardly. One of the most
desirable elements in a perfected turbine is that of reversibility, and we are
all familiar with the many and frequently cumbersome means which have been
employed to secure this end. It will be seen that this turbine is admirably
adapted for reversing, since this effect can be secured by merely closing the
right-hand valve and opening that on the left.
It is evident that the principles of this turbine are equally applicable, by
slight modifications of design, for its use as a pump, and we present a
photograph of a demonstration model which is in operation in Mr. Tesla's office.
This little pump, driven by an electric motor of 1/12 horse-power, delivers 40
gallons per minute against a head of 9 feet. The discharge pipe leads up to a
horizontal tube provided with a wire mesh for screening the water and checking
the eddies. The water falls through a slot in the bottom of this tube and after
passing below a baffle plate flows in a steady stream about 3/4 inch thick by 18
inches in width, to a trough from which it returns to the pump. Pumps of this
character show an efficiency favorably comparing with that of centrifugal pumps
and they have the advantage that great heads are obtainable economically in a
single stage. The runner is mounted in a two-part volute casing and except for
the fact that the place of the buckets, vanes, etc., of the ordinary centrifugal
pump is taken by a set of disks, the construction is generally similar to that
of pumps of the standard kind.
In conclusion, it should be noted that although the experimental plant at the
Waterside station develops 200 horse-power with 125 pounds at the supply pipe
and free exhaust, it could show an output of 300 horse-power with the full
pressure of the Edison supply circuit. Furthermore, Mr. Tesla states that if it
were compounded and the exhaust were led to a low pressure unit, carrying about
three times the number of disks contained in the high pressure element, with
connection to a condenser affording 28 1/2 to 29 inches of vacuum, the results
obtained in the present high-pressure machine indicate that the
compound unit would give an output of 600 horse-power, without great increase of
dimensions. This estimate is conservative.
The testing plant consists of two identical turbines connected by a carefully
calibrated torsion spring, the machine to the left being the driving element,
the other the brake. In the brake element, the steam is delivered to the blades
in a direction opposite to that of the rotation of the disks. Fastened to the
shaft of the brake turbine is a hollow pulley provided with two diametrically
opposite narrow slots, and an incandescent lamp placed inside close to the rim.
As the pulley rotates, two flashes of light pass out of the same, and by means
of reflecting mirrors and lenses, they are carried around the plant and fall
upon two rotating glass mirrors placed back to back on the shaft of the driving
turbine so that the center line of the silver coatings coincides with the axis
of the shaft. The mirrors are so set that when there is no torsion on the
spring, the light beams produce a luminous spot stationary at the zero of the
scale. But as soon as load is put on, the beam is deflected through an angle
which indicates directly the torsion. The scale and spring are so proportioned
and adjusted that the horse-power can be read directly from the deflections
noted. The indications of this device are very accurate and have shown that when
the turbine is running at 9,000 revolutions under an inlet pressure of 125
pounds to the square inch, and with free exhaust, 200 brake horse-power are
developed. The consumption under these conditions of maximum output is 38 pounds
of saturated steam per horse-power per hour - a very high efficiency when we
consider that the heat-drop, measured by thermometers, is only 130 BTUs., and
that the energy transformation is effected in one stage. Since about three times
this number of heat units are available in a modern plant with super-heat and
high vacuum, the above means a consumption of less than 12 pounds per
horse-power hour in such turbines adapted to take up the full drop. Under
certain conditions, however, very high thermal efficiencies have been obtained
which demonstrate that in large machines based on this principle, in which a
very small slip can be secured, the steam consumption will be much lower and
should, Mr. Tesla states, approximate the theoretical minimum, thus resulting in
nearly
frictionless turbine transmitting almost the entire expansive energy of the
steam to the shaft.
AUTOMOBILE COOLING SYSTEM PUMP
This is a four inch diameter water pump. It is specifically
designed to pump cooling water for internal combustion engines of all sizes and
types. It has an inch and a quarter inlet and a one inch outlet. It will pump
approximately 1,000 gallons of water per hour at 12 PSI. It is driven by a flat
pancake type D. C. motor that is only ½" thick. It's power requirement is 100
watts. The pump itself is fabricated from 6061 aluminum, hard anodized, which is
equivalent to a type of stainless steel that is capable of going through a 200
hour salt spray test. The bladeless pump can pump boiling water without
cavitation without loosing its prime. Conventional pumps cannot pump boiling
water, leading to engine damage if the cooling system does reach the boiling
point. This will allow a new type of cooling system for automobiles that will
replace the belt driven water pump. The electric motor that drives this pump
will not operate when the temperature engine indicates that it is not required.
The pump will only operate when it is needed. The operating temperature can
easily be adjusted in the field from 180° to 200° without having to replace a
mechanical thermostat as is the normal procedure. The conventional lifting surface
centrifugal pump that is normally used requires from 6 to 10 HP to drive it off a
belt. The new bladeless pump will operate only when needed and then consumes less
than one HP. Another example of reduction of parasitic horse-power. This pump is
currently available for commercial sale and has been fully tested.
BOUNDARY-LAYER BREAKTHROUGH - THE TESLA BLADELESS TURBINE
Journey back to the future and discover the fascinating secret behind the most
powerful and economic internal or external combustion engine of all time:
Tesla's Bladeless Boundary-Layer Turbine.
You will experience the excitement of understanding as Tesla's mechanical
breakthrough is explored, shattering the boundaries of our current mechanical
standard. You will be swept into the awareness of discovery as the simplicity of
this whirl wind machine of natural harmony is revealed. Unveiled here today how
it is possible to convert the normally undesired energy of drag into the
tremendous vortex energy of Tesla's perfectly controlled mechanical tornado. The
real answer to energy.
The history of Tesla's monarch of machines is then followed into the present day
work of researcher and inventor C.R. "Jake" Possell [1]. You will learn how
modern day applications of the bladeless turbine could improve all aspects of
our mechanical life. Today's applications range from indestructible pumps and
Freon free air conditioning to speed boats and supersonic aircraft.
Conventional pumps and engines pale in comparison. This jewel of mechanics has
no equal. It stands alone above all others. No other pump or engine can match
the longevity, economy, size, safety, silence and vibration free Herculean power
of this truly elegant machine. It waits patiently to solve the efficiency and
pollution problems of today and could literally usher in A NEW WORLD. Fully
Illustrated
[1] Mr. C. R. "Jake" Possell Is President of a Public Company called QUADRATECH,
Inc., 1417 South Gage Street, San Bernardino, CA 92408
BOUNDARY-LAYER BREAKTHROUGH - THE BLADELESS TESLA TURBINE Volume II. The Tesla
Technology Series, ISBN 1-882137-01-9
To order send $19.95 US plus $2.50 (US); $3.50 (Canada); and $6.75 (Elsewhere)
for Shipping and Handling, to:
Gary L. Peterson
P. O. Box 2001
Breckenridge, CO 80424
Parent of a Public Company called QUADRATECH, Inc., 1417 South Gage Street, San
Bernardino, CA 92408
BOUNDARY-LAYER BREAKTHROUGH - THE BLADELESS TESLA TURBINE Volume II. The Tesla
Technology Series, ISBN 1-882137-01-9
To order send $19.95 US plus $2.50 (US); $3.50 (Canada); and $6.75 (Elsewhere)
for Shipping and Handling, to:
Gary L. Peterson
P. O. Box 2001
Breckenridge, CO 80424