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Tesla Turbine: Engine of the 21st Century?The Tesla Turbine could far surpass the efficiency of the internal combustion engine. Recuperative hydraulics can be used for low-speed, high-torque needs.
At the time of his invention around 1909, Tesla was able to demonstrate a fuel efficiency of 60% with his bladeless turbine design. The most efficient combustion engines today do not get above 27 - 28% efficiency in their conversion of fuel to work. The politics of his day impeded Tesla's design from being implemented. The piston engine was already well under way, and the oil barons were not encouraging efficiency. Still today, engine manufacturers resist any changes because of retooling expenses. Enter Environmental Scientist, Ken Reili , CEO of Phoenix Navigation & Guidance, Inc. Rieli and his associates in the popular Phoenix
Turbine Builders Club that he
founded, have resurrected and improved Tesla's Turbine design. Reili thinks this technology could become
the workhorse of the 21st century, gradually replacing the piston-combustion engine that dominated
the 20th. Wind tunnel studies from airplane wings show that the first layer of air molecules on the surface are tightly joined to it. The next layer of air molecules is not as tightly bound, but nonetheless still have some binding properties. The next layer is less tightly bound still, and so forth. As the gasses fly by, they interact with these molecules in a manner that might be compared to thrust bearings in concentric cylinders: twice the rotation on the outside race is converted into one rotation on the inside. It works on a principle opposite the dimples on a golf ball. The indentations on the surface of the ball create turbulence on the surface of the ball, and this actually helps the ball fly further through the air, packing less resistance. The Tesla discs, on the other hand, should be as smooth as possible.
And Tesla did not invent the bladeless turbine concept. It was invented in
Europe in 1832. Tesla refined the design and introduced pulsed detonation,
which is not feasible in bladed turbines. Reili has been proselytizing the hybrid automobile sector where change is
expected, not resisted. Those divisions of major
auto manufacturers are the most amenable to rebuilding from the ground up.
Nevertheless, three years of seeking to get their attention has thus far been
largely futile.
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In the Tesla Turbine, the fuel is combusted prior to entering the main chamber. The gases
speed at supersonic velocity into the perimeter of chamber where they pass between closely packed
parallel discs, causing the disks to turn. The exhausting gases exit through the center of the
chamber.
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