Building a Disk Turbine

A model disk turbine built from castings. The flared port is intended for tests in compressor mode.

April 13, 2003 I just finished building an experimental disk turbine. I machined it on a 7" by 12" Gingery lathe, using a milling attachment that I designed and built this winter. The turbine was built from aluminum castings produced in a charcoal foundry. The model does demonstrate the action of Nikola Tesla's original disk turbine, which was built in 1906 and patented in 1910. Yesterday, during initial tests I was able to spin the model up to 10,200 RPM with compressed air at 75 PSI pressure. There has been an increased interest in Tesla style turbines recently with at least two engine building societies actively engaged on the world wide web. There is also a small but growing body of engineering papers, doctoral expositions, and Tesla turbine books, including a new one containing plans for a model published by W.M.J. Cairns.-- The Tesla Disk Turbine. What is a Disk Turbine? A disk turbine is distinguished form a conventional turbine mainly by the orientation and form of the blades. As the name suggests the, the turbine rotor (or runner as Tesla named it) is a stack of disks. A conventional turbine uses a more or less fan, propeller, or waterwheel shaped rotor, (depending on whether it is an axial flow or radial flow style). By contrast, a Tesla disk rotor is usually composed of a set of disks, and star shaped washers fastened onto a shaft. The disk pack is arranged with the washers and disks alternating. The washers create a space between each pair of disks. Holes or ports are machined into the disk pack around the turbine shaft. These allow the exhaust of the gas or steam medium.

Disk blanks showing 3 ports near center. A disk turbine is a radial flow gas turbine. Radial flow means that the hot gas which drives the engine is injected around the periphery of the blades, travels in a circular or spiral path. It is not an axial flow turbine. An axial flow turbine is similar to an airplane propeller -- the gas passes in a straight line along the axis of the shaft. The mechanical action which drives a Tesla style disk turbine depends on the adhesion of the fast moving gas to the disks as it travels in a spiral inside the disk sandwich toward the center port.

Adhesion of the gas to the disks is affected by several factors. Current thinking is that the smoothness of the disks is a big factor. Smoother is considered to be better. According to this theory, a rough disk surface tends to create eddies and turbulence, which converts the motion of the gas into frictional heat rather transferring that motion to the disks. Since the function of an engine is to convert heat into motion, converting motion into heat in the rotor is counterproductive. Therefore the smoother the flow, the more efficient the rotor. Smooth flow over a surface is technically called "laminar flow." Much research has gone into the conditions needed for creating laminar flow in the study of aeronautics. The advantages of laminar flow affects not only turbine blades, but aircraft surfaces, boat keels and sails and many other areas of interest to engineers. Another factor affecting the efficiency of disk rotors is the gap width. The ideal gap width would accommodate the effective thickness of laminar flow on each disk in the sandwich, but no more. Any flow that is not close enough to a disk surface to help rotate it wastes energy. Page visits since 4/13/03:

The claimed advantages of a Tesla disk turbine are that it is simple to build, and that it has a high power to weight ratio. There has also been speculation that it is fuel efficient compared to conventional axial turbines and has self-regulating capabilities. A Promising Lack of Results Despite these projected advantages, there are no practical commercially available gas disk turbine engines in production. Many new advocates of the disk turbine concept believe that the engine has been ignored for nearly a century because of engineering conclusions reached back at a time when modern high temperature metal alloys weren't available. Initial tests of a large 675 hp Tesla style steam turbine early last century by the Allis Chalmers Company yielded disappointing results. The 60" disks stretched after achieving a rotational speed of 3,600 RPM. As a result, Allis Chalmers dropped the development project, and little more industry funded engineering has appeared since. Building a Turbine at Home On the other hand individual interest in Tesla turbine experimentation remains keen. I wanted to find out for myself how well a set of disks and washers with simple ports would spin. After reading the Cairns book and looking at the plans, it seemed clear that I would probably need a milling machine to cut out the disks and ports for a machine of my own. I already owned a Dave Gingery-designed lathe that I had built the winter before using a home foundry setup. I decided to build a milling attachment with a rotary table. This took a month and a half to accomplish, and when March rolled around, I was able to test the new rig on a disk blank. It was a great feeling to mill the first port on a Tesla

disk, using machinery and stock that I had built almost entirely from scrap.

Milling a disk port with the new attachment How Big Should it be? While putting together the milling attachment I had a long period of time to think about the design requirements for the turbine. I looked at a lot of sites on the Web and read everything I could find on the subject. I also read books on model aircraft turbine engine design, which has advanced spectacularly in the last 15 years. The first question was how large to make the disks. I have seen several websites featuring 9 and 10 inch diameter turbines constructed by individual experimenters. However when it came time to test these turbines, which according to their builders were sized to accommodate 40 to 100 horsepower, compressed air was used. Most home shops have a small air compressor powered by a 1 to 3 (effective) horsepower electric motor. Obviously there is a mismatch between such a turbine's requirements and the output of a shop air compressor. Click here to go to page: 2 3 4 5 6 7

(c) Copyright 2003, Stephen Redmond, all rights reserved Building a Disk Turbine Page 3

Turning the stator and backplate. The turbine shaft blank was used as an arbor to maintain concentricity.

April 15, 2003 I decided to design the turbine housing in three main sections. A backplate/bearing support housing, a stator section, and a cover plate. These would allow me to make easy changes to the design. One stator might be designed to accommodate plug-in nozzles for driven turbine tests.

Another might be relieved to accommodate scroll chambers for compressor mode tests. The faceplate could serve as either an exhaust or inlet, and feature either a nozzle or flared intake. Castings make changes relatively easy, and often a single pattern can serve to produce variations in the form of a part. The cost in materials for casting additional pieces is trivial.

Patterns for the housing were set into a single 12' x 12" greensand drag. The cope sand will be rammed up next. It's tricky to pour such a tight mold. The vertical pieces are sprue pins which are later removed to leave the pour openings. Also because I was casting the housing, it was possible to make the design really solid. This is of course a stationary model, not an aircraft engine so weight is not a consideration. Burst strength is, however, and it is easily possible to work with 3/4" wall thickness for a turbine model of this size. The heavy housing provides a lot of additional burst protection for the rotor. Writers with experience in model aircraft turbine design suggest that rotor failure is generally unspectacular at this scale. Apparently because of the close tolerances of the housing, a blade which is failing usually stretches after exceeding yield strength, contacts the housing and turbine grinds to a screeching halt. Nevertheless, plenty of housing thickness makes for a more secure feeling when testing. Model aircraft engines typically employ very thin steel or stainless steel tubing (used camping gas containers, oil filter housings, and stainless steel kitchen canisters have all been used) and apparently give satisfactory service with the extreme rates of rotation they manage to achieve.

(c) Copyright 2003, Stephen Redmond, all rights reserved April 16, 2003 I spent a lot of time thinking about the disks. Though I had already purchased both stainless steel and aluminum sheet material suitable for the washers and disks, I decided to see if I could cast the the blades to start with. For a small engine it seemed possible to eliminate the star washers and simply cast and machine a thin boss on each disk. Then I would mill out the ports through the thickened center area of the disks. This would make a stronger assembly, since the disks would be thicker near the shaft, and the rivets normally required could be eliminated. I have seen a couple of Tesla style rotor assemblies with rivets located in the most highly stressed area of the disk spokes, just below the junction with the main disk flat, where the disk cross sectional area is

at its minimum. These rivet holes would seem to concentrate stresses at the worst possible place on the disk, and I'm guessing that if the blades yield and stretch, this is the area where it happens. In some designs, the star washers extend well past the ports and are riveted in the outer portions of the disk. These would be somewhat stronger than riveted designs with washer spokes that terminate near the ports. However the long star spokes block circular flow (not to mention laminar flow) which is the primary mechanism of the disk turbine. So the effective driven area of the disk is reduced by the length of the spokes. The spokes may nevertheless be providing drive as radial blades, but if the contribution is substantial, why not go to a radial design in the first place? Since I wanted to test a real disk turbine, long spokes didn't fit the requirement. The Gap The main question I thought about was how to dimension the disks themselves. How thick should the disks be, and how far apart should they be spaced? A lot of disk machines I read about, (and reports of some of Tesla's original engines) specified a disk gap of about 1/32" or .032. But some recent theories suggest that this is much too wide for good efficiency. The latest recommendations are based on the assumption that the disk gap should be wide enough to accommodate laminar flow on each disk face, but not much wider. There are formulas to determine this, and two of the variables they use are the kinematic viscosity of the working fluid and the speed of rotation. If you plug values into these formulas, you find that the higher the kinematic viscosity. the wider the gap needed, and the faster the blades are turning, the narrower the gap. Click here to go to page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Building a Disk Turbine Page 4

Side view of the turbine. The the tapped hole was used to lock the housing to the shaft blank while machining. It is used with an oiler when running tests.

April 16, 2003 Cont'd. According to the formulas I've seen, the kinematic viscosity value decreases with an increase in temperature. What this means is, higher temperature gas requires a wider gap than lower temperature gas. On the other hand, as a disk turbine accelerates, the gap width requirement reduces. And by a substantial amount. With these two factors at work, it isn't easy to determine a single optimum disk gap.

According to the formulas a disk turbine's efficiency may vary substantially at different speeds. It also means that a compressed airpowered turbine may favor a different gap width than a steam powered version, or an internal combustion product turbine, since the temperatures of operation are each quite different, even if the turbine runs at the same speed in each case. April 20, 2003 Some Practical Calculations I had planned to make a list of calculated disk gap values for different temperatures and rotational speeds, but when I actually plugged in the numbers an interesting thing happened. The required gap stayed similar for different modes of operation within a specific disk size. The formula I used was adapted from a paper by Glen A. Barlis, which essentially says that the disk gap in inches is equal to Pi*SQRT(1376*Kinematic Viscosity/RPM)) for kinematic viscosity measured in sq. ft./sec As I wrote earlier, increasing the rotational speed of a disk turbine decreases the ideal gap size. And increasing the temperature of the gas increases the ideal gap size. A compressed air turbine like mine, as it runs now, at 68 F, and 10,000 RPM would ideally have a disk gap of .015" according to this equation (I actually am running at .017"). If the temperature remained the same and I ran at 70,000 RPM, the ideal disk gap would be .006", which is a substantial difference.

(c) Copyright 2003, Stephen Redmond, all rights reserved However, to achieve that speed, I would probably be thinking in terms of an internal combustion engine with a temperature of say 1000 degrees (and of course heat resistant materials for the disks). I plugged in approximate figures for an IC gas turbine and a steam powered turbine of the same size and got the following results: For the IC turbine at 1000 F and 70,000 RPM the ideal gap would be .012". That's actually pretty close to what I am running now. A steam powered turbine, running at 30,000 RPM and 400 degrees F, would require a gap of .013" -- again, pretty close.

I had expected a bigger divergence between these different cases, but the increase in speed is almost completely negated by an increase in operating temperature. And so a gap of about .013" would seem to be close to ideal across a range of operation for a disk of this size. Some of the 9 and 10 inch turbines illustrated on the web, and Tesla's original turbine models have a disk gap of .032". Of course, bigger disks will run at slower speeds -- in proportion to their diameter, and so require larger gaps. But how large?. Well, according to the formula considered, a gap of .024" would be optimal for a 9 inch disk run at 10,000 RPM on steam at 400 degrees F, and a figure of .023" would be optimal for an IC gas turbine running at 20,000 RPM and 1000 F. Unless higher temperatures or lower RPM are anticipated as the normal operating range, it appears that a gap of .032" is 50% oversized for good efficiency in a large disk, and a gap of .024" might be a better choice. The Cairns turbine has a diameter close to my own model, yet has a disk gap of about .020", again, oversized according to the Barlis formula by about 50%. Click here to go to page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Building a Disk Turbine Page 5

Cast disk blank. After the disk is initially surfaced on the lathe, the ports are being milled with the milling attachment. Two more lathe surfacing operations will create a raised hub section and final disk faces.

April 21, 2003 Casting the Disks I decided to give myself a little extra thickness to play with and settled on a disk gap of .017". Disk thickness would be .040, which seemed thick enough for adequate stiffness while machining the disk surfaces. This is probably a little heavier than needed, but if I wanted to cut things closer in future trials, it is would be easier to remove material than to cast and machine all new blades. I made 4 disk patterns out of the scrap plywood from a small Clementine orange box left over from Christmas. Using a 3" hole saw, the pattern material was quickly cut into circles. Some auto-body putty to fill flaws, two coats of lacquer based sanding-sealer with talcum powder

added, and two coats of spray lacquer finished the patterns. The patterns were sanded after each paint coat with 300 grit wet or dry paper.

Orange crate to turbine engine: cutout, finished pattern, rough casting, and machined turbine disk blank. I bedded the patterns in a facing layer of greensand composed of #130 mesh sand and Bentonite clay. This is a little too fine for good permeability, so I backed the main with a coarser mix of fine masonry sand and fire clay. This was the same stuff I had cast the lathe and milling attachment with.

(c) Copyright 2003, Stephen Redmond, all rights reserved

The cope and drag sand was vented with wire right through the cavity faces. The sprue was 1" in diameter. I arranged all of the patterns around a single sprue. It is important with castings this thin that the runners be made wide. If not, the metal will chill before it fills the molds. Since the sections are so thin, you have to make the runners wider than normal in order to get adequate flow. I got it right on the first pour of four disks, but failed on the second. The third and fourth pours had adequate runner width. Metal temperature was a little hotter than I normally pour with. I used fresh pistons rather than previously poured ingots or sprues, as I find that these tend to give the best castings with the fewest flaws. April 28, 2003 Skipping ahead a little bit, I just cast and machined today a new stator for the turbine. I've got a lot more to say about the turbine disks, assembly and the the trials -- but I've done so much in the last week that I need to catch up with the current stuff. The new part is a diffuser housing which will allow me to try the turbine as a compressor. It's basically a ring with set of twelve scrolls that mate with ports drilled through the back of the bearing plate. Out of the Ashes The casting method was the easiest and most basic method imaginable. My wife Cheryl was burning some downed limbs and brush in the yard for Spring cleanup and I decided to see if I could melt some aluminum in the fire rather than use the charcoal foundry. I thought I'd try to pour the stator if it worked out.

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Building a Disk Turbine Page 6

The new stator is milled the vertical rotary table I designed as part of my milling attachment. The twelve small scrolls that I'm cutting will diffuse the compressor wheel output and direct it toward the rear of the turbine. Probably it's time to clean up the swarf!

April 28, 2003 Cont'd. I dug a small recess in the hot coals, and set my smaller crucible, a cast iron plumber's lead pot, right in the fire. I'd loaded it with a discarded piston, and a couple of old sprues from a previous pour. The mould was already made up. It was an easy one -- the pattern I'd used was the same one used to cast the first turbine stator. I did wonder if the fire would get hot enough to melt the aluminum -- we were burning some green pine, and there was no blower. The cast iron pot was fairly massive. So the odds were against it. But, if it didn't work, my foundry setup was nearby, and at least the fire would pre-heat the metal so I wouldn't need so much charcoal. Since I've been involved in casting, I've found that charcoal costs more than any other raw material. After about forty minutes I saw a piece of a sprue that had been sticking up, fall off into the pot, a sure sign that a pour was imminent. I picked up my stirring rod and gave the sprue a poke. It toppled over and I saw a quickly growing puddle of silvery aluminum in the bottom of the crucible. At this rate, the metal would be ready to pour in a minute or two. I grabbed my leather welder's gloves and helmet ( a welder's face mask with a clear eye-plate) and my skimmer. The mold was ready. I skimmed carefully because quite a bit of ash from the fire was floating on the surface. This actually helps to protect the melt from oxidation, and is easily removed. The metal was definitely hot. (c) Copyright 2003, Stephen Redmond, all rights reserved I poured the mold quickly, and then emptied the excess into a muffin tin that I always keep nearby. The aluminum actually looked a little hotter than I normally like to pour for a fairly massive casting. There's a greater chance for flaws, gas bubbles, or metal tears when the metal has too much heat. Thin castings on the other hand require hotter metal so that the mold can be completely filled before the metal freezes Obviously, there was no problem melting aluminum in an ordinary open wood fire, even without a blower. I'd like to experiment a little further

possibly using a pit, and firing it with cordwood ... or even stacked sticks to see how much I can minimize the melt time and fire size. After a half hour wait, the mold was ready to break open. The stator ring came out bright and clean, and ready to work on.

The new stator design. Twelve small scrolls give it a mandala-like appearance Click here to go to page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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The new compressor stator with the disks and backplate.

May 1, 2003 I made a mistake yesterday milling the stator -- I measured the annular space at 2-3/4" rather than 3" in diameter, and didn't catch the error until I had completely milled the scrolls. I hadn't dimensioned my drawing in my hurry to start cutting metal. The problem was obvious when I assembled the turbine. Trying to mill the space wider and then re-cut the scrolls didn't work out, and I decided to cast another stator. This time the charcoal furnace did its job, and I had a new casting in about an hour and a half from when I started packing sand. I've become pretty fast with a single casting. I light the fire before starting to mold, and by the time I've put the flask together the coals are glowing. It takes about 20 minutes to melt a good potfull of aluminum, and about a half hour for the casting to cool before breaking open the mold. This time the layout was good, and I had milled out a second stator by the end of the day. It looked nice -- fun seeing something that was just a part of your imagination emerge with its own sophistication of form from primitive equipment. The turbine has an unexpected mandala-like look about it that's aesthetically satisfying. Don't know if it will work well, but it will be fun to find out.

(c) Copyright 2003, Stephen Redmond, all rights reserved

I got the idea for a multiple scroll housing from one of Kurt Schreckling's first turbine experiments. His engine looked quite different than mine -- it had a four-scroll housing made out of a big square of plywood. Channels were routed into the plywood about a half inch wide. They extended out to the corners of the board, which was why a square had fit the purpose. Tube elbows behind the scroll transferred the compressed air to a separate combustion chamber, which, in the photo I have, looks to be a spray paint can. The whole thing had the appearance of a gothic rocket booster from one of the old Buster Crabb Buck Rogers adventure movies. Very cool. My scrolls are twelve in number and a quarter inch wide. They pass through the backing plate. I expect to add a canister housing to the back of the turbine to enclose a combustion chamber and an axial turbine. That's if the compressor actually works well enough to support them. (01/05/04 I had to put the Tesla project aside while I built a new house. I expect to resume work on the project in Feb or March of 2004).

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