Abstract:
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Since its invention, the Tesla turbine has had little industrial application and relatively
few investigations have been carried out in order to achieve a machine which can be
very useful in some fields where other machines have difficulties.
Nowadays, the available technology permits to build this sort of turbine in a way which
was not possible in 1913. Since recently, the interest on the Tesla’s first design has
grown and new experimentations have been started and performed.
It is the goal of this study to run tests on a functioning Tesla Turbine provided by the
ITSM at the Stuttgart University in order to learn about its performance and to reach
conclusions about the efficiency and power of this model. Basically, the constructive
parameter inlet nozzle diameter has been modified twice in order to determine its
impact on the turbine’s functioning and experimental results, which are presented in this
study.
Prior to the experiments, some modifications have been done to the test stand, in order
to adapt it to the current necessities of this study: improvement of the needle for the
lever to increase accuracy in the measurement of the weight, substitution of old bearings
for new and improved ones for the turbine and the DC dynamo, connection of two
thermocouples and a universal transmitter in order to be able to record the temperature
difference between inlet and outlet of the turbine so that the enthalpies and the
isentropic efficiency can be calculated, implementation of a new measuring protocol for
the balance, integration of a fourth power resistor in order to achieve lower loads,
improvement of the device for the dissipation of the turbine output power by means of a
ventilation directed to the power resistors and an integration of a metal plate to avoid
overheating, calibration of the revolutions, the mass flow rate and the pressure and
adaptation of all the changes to the existing data acquisition software. |