Low Budget Super Power
Posted: Friday, June 23, 2006
by Ed Howes
It's 21st Century technology, invented nearly a hundred years ago. Isn't it about time to
Near the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Nikola Tesla invented an amazingly simple vane less turbine engine which developed ten horsepower per pound of engine weight. By way of comparison, a modern factory high performance, piston engine makes less than one horsepower per pound of engine weight. Tesla achieved this remarkable power to weight ratio with cast iron. Using aluminum for much of the same device would jump the power to weight ratio to at least twenty horsepower per pound, which was Tesla‘s goal. More remarkable is the fact that Tesla achieved this power as a steam driven turbine and not as a combustion turbine. His dream of twenty horsepower per pound is easily in reach of a modern machine shop. Possibly as many as fifty horsepower per pound is also within reach of modern production capability.
So who needs a half pound, twenty five horsepower engine? Motorcyclists, home electric generators. RV electric generators. Hybrid electric vehicles, compact trucks and mini vans, one for each wheel. And who needs a four pound two hundred horsepower engine? Every mechanic who ever changed a five hundred pound, two hundred horsepower engine. Small aircraft pilots, small boat enthusiasts, compact and mid size car and truck owners, neighborhood or village electric generators. On and on it goes. Double the power and weight and we find a host of replacement conditions and options. Go the other way. How about a five horsepower engine that weighs two ounces? The uses of Tesla combustion turbines are limited only by one’s imagination. Brand new truck, aircraft, boat and auto companies would sprout like potatoes to build vehicles around such tiny power plants.
Although Tesla designed a combustion turbine for liquid fuel and invented a super one way mixture supply valve to create a high speed pulse engine, applying fast burn combustion principles to the Tesla turbine will substantially increase power output and fuel economy with very low emissions. Here we have a Twenty First Century engine that has been around and ignored for ninety years or more. With either one or two moving parts, depending on whether we use a revolving combustion chamber to reverse engine rotation, we also have an engine that is cheap and easy to manufacture.
Tesla’s passion was divided between wireless electrical transmission and anti gravity air transport. He had such a wide range of personal interests, he seldom developed anything to optimal function. This remains for others to do, opening all kinds of patent and marketing opportunities. Tesla did the hard work. Who will finish it?
The Tesla turbine has found applications as a pump to transfer fish in hatchery tanks, to pump concrete and to drive boats. For reasons unknown to me but suspected, there has been little work done to make combustion engines with the design. The great opportunity being missed here is the ease of producing a multi stage engine in a compact, lightweight design that would easily double the best fuel economy possible with a piston engine and more than double the best power possible. Those of us with little economic and political power can get very excited about the possibilities of great mechanical power, as Tesla himself did.
Supercharging combustion engines has been a technique for substantially increasing the power output by half, double, triple and more, depending on the strength of engine parts which must bear the increased loads created by the boosted power levels. Since superchargers are essentially air pumps, as are combustion engines, the Tesla turbine is not only an ideal pump for supercharging engines, it can be built as a unit with a Tesla combustion turbine to boost power by a factor of five or more. This is what makes fifty horsepower per pound a distinct and perhaps conservative possibility.
While superchargers have been used to boost power for more than sixty years, exhaust scavengers are practically unknown. The Tesla design presents an opportunity to add a third stage on the exhaust side of the combustion turbine that will draw the exhaust gases out of the combustion turbine, making the supercharger on the other side more efficient.
As a supercharger on a piston engine, either belt or exhaust driven, the Tesla turbine offers far lower cost, greater efficiency, greater dependability and ease of maintenance. The truly revolutionary supercharger application would come from a self powered combustion turbine/ compressor. It does nothing until additional power is needed at any desired engine speed. It is then switched on with the push of a button and can be controlled to produce the same amount of boost at any engine speed, something no belt or exhaust driven supercharger can do.
Combine the elegance, simplicity, low cost, power potential, dependability, ease of maintenance and fuel economy of the Tesla turbine with fast burn vapor fuel and/ or water fuel with modern computer controlled fuel induction and we would have the perfect replacement for every combustion application known to mankind. How much longer will the very idea of it sit on history’s shelf?
Ed Howes sought and found, knocked and entered.Now he sees things differently. To see more of what he sees, please visit http://www.justanotherview.com or do an author search here at Search Warp. Readers grow: wiser, better, faster.
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Top-level comments on this article: (4 total)why try a compressed air cylindar converted to electric generator via a tesla turbine rerouting electric back through capacitors as well as air saved in a closed system ?I'd like to see how this hybrid compares to compressed air gasoline engine .sounds like an EV without emisions better performance with an electric motor and maybe more efficiency and distance ?
The Tesla turbine does not produce as much power as a modern vane turbine. Especially with cast iron. The design is indeed usable, but not for compact or lightweight applications, and not for large scale applications. Modern vane turbines can reach abotu 60% efficiency. This means they convert about 60% of the heat energy of steam into electircity. The rest is waste heat. This, as far as I know, includes the use or heat exchangers, regenerators, and double cycle power plants. A tesla turbine maxes out at about 40% efficiency. So, for any steam that you generate, you will only produce 2/3 the power that you could possibly get from a vane turbine. In addition, it is not the turbine that makes up most of the weight. It is the boiler that weighs the most. Even the smallest effective boilers are twice the size of an average motorcycle. And, then you have to carry a liquid which to turn into steam. That weighs more than the boiler. A 20 horsepower steam engine will require several gallons of water to run even for a short time. Unless you include a condenser to retain your water in a closed loop steam system, you will need to tank up on water frequently. Then you need fuel to heat the water. Again, you will need to carry gasoline or propane or wood to burn to convert heat to steam to convert steam to work to convert work to electricity to convert electricity to a transmission, which in turn will run your "25 pound" motorcycle. Using compressed air is more realistic. However the efficiencies are even fewer, as air can be compressed. Thus it takes more air at higher pressure to do the same amount of work. This is why no one uses steam in motive engines (except ships). With more research you will find that even with modern materials, a tesla turbine falls apart at the temperatires and speeds that current vane turbines run at. Higher temperature equals higher efficiency. Turbine disks large enough to compete with the power requirements of a modern steam plant warp out of shape within a few hundred hours of use. If you were a steam plant operator, would you want to rebuild your turbine twice a month? A tesla turbine might be useable for low efficiency non-mobile uses. The main advantage of a tesla turbine is not efficiency. They are not efficient. The main advantage is the simplicity of building a tesla trubine. Also, laminar flow (tesla) engine is a type of drag based turbine. The most efficient turbines do not use drag, they use lift. This is true for wind turbines, as well as closed loop steam turbines as well as motive gas turbines that you find in aircraft. Tesla turbines are cheap to manufacture though. SO if you have an infinite supply of energy (such as heat) where it doesnt matter what the efficinecy is, then you might be able to use it. In summary, the tesla trubine never cut the mustard. This was proven when power plant operators attempted to use them back in the early 1900's.
The problem with using a tesla turbine for the compression of any gas(whether intake air or exhaust) is that at high compression ratios, the airat the edge of each disk is hotter than the air at the center, resulting in thedisk being hotter at the edge than the center. Because metals expand whenheated, the outer edge of each disk "wants" to be bigger than the part of thedisk inside it. This results in warping, and eventual mechanical failure.
Tip Info / New Technology Submission - Gearturbine - AtypicalYou Tube Video; Atypical New * GEARTURBINE / Retrodynamic = DextroRPM VS LevoInFlow + Ying Yang Thrust Way Type - Non Waste LoosesGEARTURBINE -Atypical Combustion Turbine Engine, -State of the Art, -New Thermodynamic Technology, -With Retrodynamic "Dextrogiro vs Levogiro" Effect, is when the inflow direction moves is against [VS] of the circular rotary dynamic / RPM Rotor Move VS Inflow Conduits Way /ACTION VS REACTION / Front 2 Front / Velocity vs Velocity, making in a simple way a very strong concept of power thrust, a unique technical quality. -Cylindrical shape dynamic mass (continue Inertia cinetic positive tendens motion / all the motor weight is goin with the power thrust direction), -Non Waste, parasitic losses form-function engine system for; cooling, lubrication & combustion; -Lubrication & Combustion inside a conduit radial position, out way direction, activated by centrifugal force Fueled Injected (centripetal to in) , -Cooling in & out; In by Thermomix flow & Out by air Thermo transference, activated by the dynamic rotary move, -Increase the first compression by going of reduction of one big circumference fan blades going to, -2two very long distance captive compression inflow propulsion conduits (like a digestive system) (long interaction) in perfect equilibrium well balanced start were end like a snake bite his own tale, -Inside active rotor with 4 pairs of retrodynamic turbos (complete regeneration power system), -Mechanical direct "Planetary Gear" power thrust like a Ying Yang (very strong torque) (friendly loose friction) 2two small gears in polar position inside a bigger shell gear, wide out the rotor circumference were have much more lever power thrust, lower RPM in a simple way solution for turbines, to make possible for a some new work application (land). -3 Stages of inflow turbo compression before the combustion. -3 points united of power thrust; 1- Rocket Flames, 2-Planetary Gear & 3-Exhaust Propulsion, all in one system. -2two continuous circular moving inside combustion (rocket flames) like two dragons trying to bite the tail of the opposite other. -Hybrid flow system different kind of aerolasticity thermoplastic inflow propulsion types; single, action & reaction turbines applied in one same system, -Military benefits, No blade erosion by sand & very low heat target profile. -Power thrust by barr (tube); air sea land & generation application, -With the unique retrodynamic technical quality of "dextrogiro vs levogiro" effect is when the inside flow moves against of the rotor moves making a very strong concept, RPM Rotor Move VS Inflow Conduits Way (an a example is like to move the head to the side of the strike hit) -A pretender of very high % porcent efficient power plant engine. -Patent; Dic 1991 IMPI Mexico #197187
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