TURBO CHARGED 60HP TESLA GAS DISC TURBINE DRIVE TRAIN WITH VIKTOR SCHAUBERGER’S PRINCIPLE APPLIED
(with the HP I’m being conservative here)
Posted: December 5-08
Design of : Erwin – Badertscher

Here are a few instructions in how to build your own powerful disc turbine drive via a perspective drawing and a few comments.

I have never built a Tesla turbine but am getting quite tired of all the negativism spread on the net concerning these dominant disc turbine performers. Tesla talked about 98% efficiency, a horse power to pound weight ratio of 10:2 and better, says they are easy to build and claims that gas performance is even higher than steam. Seams to me there are nothing but a bunch of rats running around the Net hording over their cheese.

I chose a small turbine for the logic to boost it, because I like this kind of machinery. Obviously a simple 9 ¾ DIA turbine with a runner of 16 discs would suffice for the occasion. So if you want it simple, that’s the route you’d take, and don’t listen to the garbage on the Net. This thing about having to have this jet tube to make the turbine run is all nonsense. Tesla didn’t use it when driving his big alternator didn’t he!!! At the same token it is obvious the more pressure available entering the disc pack the more torque the rotor will produce. Tesla was talking about pressurizing  the intake.

Knowing that the best weight to power ratio is having the exhaust gas turbine with compressor on the same shaft as the main turbine I would design it as such, which is all fine if you have the room to do it with. In our case here though, we need a compact package “my way” that fits in front of the driver, under the fuel tank and within a bike frame.

You might think the power plant being complicated looking at my drawing at first glance. In reality it’s not so of course. You’ll agree with me once you take a closer look.

If you do not understand my perspective, then visualize a slice cut out of an apple and turn the apple until you can only see the one side of the cut and half of the exposed apple core and compare it to my drawing. Keep looking at it and study the individual parts ‘til it clicks. I wanted the whole unit all on one sheet of paper. Because of my scanner size I had to squeeze the different items into an A4 standard paper format, making it therefore appear a little crowded.

Having it all in one frame is making it easier for you to see at your leisure the different components and their functions in relation to each other with the different housings used and its connections. The units are described as follows:

1. Three water cooled pulse-injected,air, gas and water injected vortex jet coned combustion chambers with glow plugs. Air and fuel are valvular pulsed.
2. Main turbine with prop type spinner nut 20 discs plus end discs gas turbine with two exhausts. Inner is fitted with a piston ring which is its own housing fitted intermixed between the lube oil side pump and main housing.
3. In between the two above housings is one or more cooling fan discs between snap rings
4. Next to it is the high temp. (HT) seal, bearing and  3 discs lube Oil pump VH, compartment divider-washer and second bearing within the bearing compartment  of the hydraulic oil pump housing
   
5. HT seal 10 plus 2 end discs of the hydraulic oil pump volute housing (VH) again with  a compartment divider-washer
   
6. Next to it the water pump HT seal with 3 cooling fluid disc pump VH end-flange with end-nut.
7. Not shown is the radiator
8. Behind the combustion chambers are two stacked Valvular back flow inhibitors left and right side. A third one might be used to inject water
9. Above is the exhaust gas turbine also with prop type spinner nut and 40 plus two end discs including a piston ring VH
10. One or more cooling fan discs between two snap rings.
11. HT seal with bearing next into the lube oil bearing chamber and second bearing
12. HT seal 16 discs turbine air compressor with shaft sleeve washer and prop type spinner nut. All other discs are on sleeves also  .
13. Not shown is the inter cooler
14. Bottom right is the Hydraulic 14 disc motor with the auto  front wheel bearing,  snap ring, safety washer and safety nut on other end.
15. Not shown is the oil reservoir
16. Not shown is the flow control valve body with hydraulic oil filter

Discs and HP

My weight estimate of the whole unit should be around 60 pounds incl. hydraulic disc drive motor, which will be the heaviest item. The turbine output will be roughly 80 max HP for a short duration.

If you wonder how I arrived at those 80HP..... well it was just an educated guess from added up tidbits I've read. A more realistic figure would be 60 HP.

Tesla's lab numbers state 5 B.H.P. (brake horse power) per 9-3/4" disc and 3-5/8" DIA exhaust, under good conditions without to much steel stress with ultimate higher end figures. I am writing this not knowing whether gas, steam or both was used .

Without considering Viktor Schauberger's principle, for low pressure turbo charging with three times the discs under superheat, meaning steam mixed with the H combustion, we should be able to triple the HP according to Tesla, which would give us a total of 81.9 B.H.P which is close to my guess. We'll call it 60 HP to be on the conservative side.

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1/32 is quite thin, would burn up much easier than the next size up, 1mm would perhaps suffice, except I am placing 35 discs at 1/16" width, with OD chamfered to a sharp edge, starting with a 1/32" spacing and a 3-3/4" overall runner width on the drawing board; this way I have some leeway margin in disc spacing  and number of discs to interchange. We have also a little more horse power to start with at a lower RPM. The idea is to see the HP difference in compressor charging between 1/32" and 5/64th" spacing on the main turbine. There might be to many discs, which does not matter. I'll keep removing discs until I have the proper output and rpm.

I think the main shaft should be at least 1-1/4” DIA mild steel, not 22mm like I drew it on the power train, especially if discs are used in numbers and over 6" DIA. I have to get used to the tremendous output those light weight turbines develop. If you go smaller use a chromium-vanadium and titanium alloy, or similar, for the shaft. If you have the money it will  be worth it. As you study the different components of the power plant, you will notice that I designed them as simple staged parts easily producible on a lathe, with capabilities of incredible disc-pack and axial pressures which is the reason for the heavy wall used, plus giving room for the bolts. I suggest to using Allen head socket screws in stead of standard cap machine bolts. The longest bolts (standard) are used holding the water bump housing. Some parts I would prefabricate and then machine them to size, which usually saves me from having to buy a big junk of steel. The inner exhaust stack for instance. Same with the volute (spiral) housings. Similar tactic as I used on my green crossflow turbine on my Alternative Energy page. If you can tig weld aluminum, then build the housings  with aluminum, except the main and first half of the bearing compartment which is mounted to the exhaust assembly.

In reality, the turbo disc charger would sit with more clearance above the main turbine as drawn, in order to get enough room above the oil pump for the pressure booster. Especially since I am thinking of placing a third combustion chamber. You can well see my trouble I had squeezing it in there. Also for maximum boost, the exhaust gas turbine and compressor runner should be 50% bigger and/or three times as many discs, than the main turbine runner in order to get optimum torque out of the slower exhaust gases under standard conditions, except I implemented Viktor Schauberger’s principle. Nature adds its fabulous boost through the vortex thrust (spiral motion) with its special effects. The already present spiral motion is enhanced by the spiral rib (of proper direction left or right hand) placed inside the exhaust cone and the cones jet result, speeding up the whirling gas velocity with diminishing friction in the exhaust stack while it cools the gas and augmenting its density, thus multiplying the exhaust turbine torque.

The spiral twists per inch, is found on the Kudu antelope's horns (Schauberger). You’ll find the twist in a long curved line probably 16" per twist for a 4" inside diameter. http://www.wildlife-pictures-online.com/image-files/xap2kudu1.jpg
   

Option 2: There is little exit thrust and heat left of the combustion gases if the right disc area, amount of disks and disc spacing is used resulting in 98% efficiency, hence to make turbo charging successful in a small DIA machine, one must use a bigger disc exit opening. To further increasing the gas flow is accomplished with the proper number of discs and spacing the main turbine discs more than usual, also resulting in more fuel used, to say 0.080" at 5-1/2 DIA in order to get the gas penetration velocity or call it blow by (critical factor, which has to be tested), past the boundary layers for increasing thrust velocity and enhancing it with the proper direction of Schauberger’s principle to achieve the maximum gas speed for the turbo charger; the exit gases are in slight vortex style anyhow because of the spinning discs. Whereas using close disc spacing  of say 0.032” which is 16 thou per b-layer  at 5-1/2 “ disc DIA of the exhaust gas turbine in order to classify for effective torque towards compressor pressure to charge the main turbine with, which a Schauberger twist liner would intensify. Keep in mind that Tesla talked of the rule of thumb disk spacing being the same as the thickness of the disks used. The reason would be the gas or fluid column hitting the discs is being restricted while divided into the different disk spacing areas. If the disc is wider as the disc spacing, the fluids  flow will be restricted due to its density even more while flowing into the spaces causing turbulence thus restricting the flow. With gases or air it is not as critical as with fluids. I made you a little sketch showing you what happens to the gas or fluid column volume while it is penetrating the disc spaces.  Now you can see why the discs must be further apart with water or oil, because the red colored volume must be able to penetrate without too much restriction in order to prevent loss of velocities. Small restriction might cause side pressure for better adhesion which would be a benefit.

Intake slot angle
Any of the hot gases not being able to penetrate the disc spaces at the start are carried around on top of the disc periphery for a short distance until penetration. This short distance would be a squeezing compressing slow down action  between the housing radius and gas volume until penetration, if the slot angle is in a tangent angle to the housing circumference, also causing gas spillage between the end discs and housing wall space. Therefore the slot angle should not be aimed in a tangent line fashion to the housing circumference, but instead  5° to 8°  toward the center of the discs.

On the air compressor side, the amount of discs used would be according to max air boost pressure without loosing more then 20% or best torque exhaust turbo rpm. The air from the compressor is taken through an intercooler, then again through a jet spiral cone cooling it as it enters the valvular conduit before it hits the conical combustion chamber for another vortex jet stream stage.

As you likely have noticed by now, the pipe diameter or area at the beginning of the flow is at most possible size (without widening) in order to funnel it down for the jet stream and vortex twist at a tad bigger as the next entry area, again using the squeezing action to speed up the gases. Also on the final exhaust stack Schauberger’s principle is used with opposite result enhancing the vacuum.

In case you wonder why I used twin exhaust stacks on the main turbine, it is for better breathing/gas/vacuum flow purposes of the engine towards more power of the exhaust gas turbine and equal side thrust, besides Nikola Tesla did it that way. One thing about dual exhaust, it gets quite tricky to extend a flanged  stack past the  two cooling discs and  lube oil chamber  housing and still being able to bolt the housing to the main turbine. I can see it done, but not without some fancy fabricating. For the same reason, sizing both turbines equally would be more economical and faster to build. There would be two countersunk bolts  applied close to the edge of the flange inside the  exhaust duct  and the lube assembly combination. Since we are talking about dual exhausts, I've been thinking of doing the same with the exhaust gas turbine, because of the disc stack length it would make lot of sense; would be neat to have two big exhaust end flares sticking out the back.  :)

Startup
In order to get the turbine running, it matters little as to what kind of combustion chamber you want to use, although to achieve top rpm and max torque is a different story. Using Tesla's newer combustion chamber will guarantee power, whereas my design has to be proving itself yet, although mine has same volume as his. I am still improving on it. For safety on startup you need of course air storage in an accumulator using the air pressure for air flow  with the glow-plug hot before  gas ignition, while you, very important , open up the gas valve to the start position setting, until you have the fire in the hole to spool up the discs if you don’t want to blow up your "toy" and yourself!!!. Do not even try to start it with gasoline or diesel fuel it won’t likely start up, unless you vaporize it first. Hydrogen will ignite at 560C.

Turbo Charged Disc Turbine Combustion Chamber  Vortex Type

You have the slots in the turbine housing to exchange the various combustion systems to your liking.

The water tank (fuel tank) :)
is equipped with an air bladder pressurized by the compressor, which water feeds both, the H chamber and turbine combustion chamber. Pressure reducer for the H line and regulator for the other, controlled by the operator relative to the pyro EGT and boost pressure gauge. The pressurized bladder will also start the turbine.

Tesla used either, glow or spark plugs for ignition and quite a good size water cooled trough for starters, which is well visible on the gasoline setup with which he drove his own 50KW alternator being at least three times as big in size as the driving disc turbine (notice in the drawing it wasn't). The first time in 1911 he did a similar stunt by using his derby hat size 110 HP turbine, steam driven. Later, in 1920 he went to a narrow slot combustion chamber design for quicker combustion which is the occasion he was talking about the pulse combustion elevating to a musical note, which he achieved with his Gasoline disc turbine using the Valvular conduit.

His 330HP steam turbine with free exhaust with a 24 disc 18” runner occupied only a 20 x 35” platform at 5 feet high including the regulator and all.

Valvular conduit
When you design the milling slots of this check valves, make sure the area of the exit pipe is the same as the area of the center slot of the valvular conduit  and the side return slots are half size of the main slot. It's just common sense!
http://www.tfcbooks.com/patents/1329559.htm
I would build the conduit in two parts. The aluminum lid by drilling and fitting the fins into the slots of the lid with all the fins cut of rounded flat bar welded to it from the top side. The bucket  design I would machine out of PVC and fit the lid  with the fins on top of the PVC with the fins hanging inside filling the bucket slots to their proper position. PVC should be OK since the  tubes through the combustion chamber insert are water cooled. The radius and angle cut of the flat bar I would machine on the mill and then cut off all the fins to length off the bar. If the air and water is fed under pressure to the turbine you will only need one V-Conduit for the H gas!!! In fact the V-conduit might not be needed in my next burning nozzle design.

Sizing:
The sizing of the main turbine depends mostly on the size of your shop equipment, horse power and what you want to use it for. I gave you three sizes in my drawing, to give you a relative size idea, for starters. The measurements you get are in deed very relative to the perspective drawing especially as it is moving distance wise away from you showing smaller in size. The hydraulic motor is differently sized with 1:2 (10mm=5mm) whereas the main muscle is 1:1.5. (10mm=6.5mm in the drawing) Just take a metric millimeter measurement on a part off the drawing and multiply it either with 1.5, 2, 2.5 or whatever you want to size the specific part up to. The reason why I used 2 different size ratios on my drawing is the difference in item size of the main power train and the hydraulic drive motor. My  combustion chamber drawing is sized 1:1 with a 5-1/2" 140mm DIA by 3-3/8" 86mm long disc pack.

By designing the disc housing longer as needed one can add or subtract discs until the proper power envelope is reached, thus machining the housing and shaft to proper length. Just keep in mind that running the main turbine by itself might be with different disc spacing as when a turbo compressor is charging it, as mentioned above which  I  am  not quite sure yet. It all depends on the  exhaust velocity of the tight spaced discs with the big exit openings.

Also it would be wise while designing your exact shaft size to order those few pump seals and piston rings first, before you start. These few items, by the way, see to the quality of your total operation of the unit….. the toughest part.  Use good bearings  since  the  runner will rotate at least 35'000 RPM for 5.5" disc sizes of small number.

Bearings

The piston rings (used to be common practice on turbochargers) are used on the shaft and inner exhaust side of the turbine stopping the gases from entering the next compartment. If you can’t get any piston rings just space the housing further apart from the heat source and add some more disc blowers, which is what they are designed for and my idea! The piston ring takes up some of the side thrust like a car hub takes, thus if you eliminate the piston ring use the tapered roller bearings like wheel bearings, only if needed.  Consequently while designing the housing make sure you have enough meat to  machine it out to the size of a  tapered thrust bearing on both sides if the standard bearings do not cut it (consider the rpm!). My truck turbo charger has standard bearings running in oil for years and is still going strong, thus I do not think the expensive air journal bearings are needed.

In my case I designed a double, although can be multiple blower disc pack with distant spacers, sitting on a woodruff key which stops the discs from turning, being squeezed between two snap rings. The blower is there to keep the compartment next door from heating up and seal from melting. 'Course you  use  center openings  on the discs as usual.  By the way, the discs  on a shaft without a housing will develop air current once spun up.

The disc housing at the base needs a 3/8" condensation drain, just a plain or 1/2" thread tapped hole within a trough, especially if water is injected. Use a rounded heavy piece of steel, insert it through the housing slot on top (just desided for three slots) :), place the casing on a bearing race and press an indent into the base of the housing for the drain hole, before you drill the hole and machine the housing. If machined already grind a slot across the bore lengthwise the housing.

The runner

Pending of pump, compressor/blower, or driver and rpm.
For high torque and high rpm use double key grooves. For high torque use double keyed sleeves and shafts.
On the compressor  you won't need a sleeve, that way you get more disc surface, meaning the need for less discs on the shaft.
Odd number of discs works out right if spacer-studs are used.
A little fine tuning here:
When machining the OD of the end discs make them 1/8th bigger than the disc pack, so they just slide into the main housing. with a chamfer on the OD and accommodating groove in the housing on both ends accordingly, because they stretch about 1.5mm at top rpm, making sure all of the hot gases stay within the pack when hitting the periphery of the discs. Slight taper on the intake slot ends would also help. Don't need to worry therefore about  water buildup on the side walls. If you want to be on the save side, machine little ring groves on the end disc and housing side, like Tesla did.

Order of stud/rivet installation: Threaded Shaft  with end-flange and 2 keys in the slots. The sleeve with keys and threaded ends and washers dia same or just below the exhaust windows which are used to draw the whole disk pack together with two nuts the size of the sleeve. The outside tapered end disk with triple width of the disks and plain, meaning no exhaust windows unless the exhaust or intake is both ways. There are four/eight stud holes on a circle close to the OD of the disks in a 16 divided circle (skipping one hole) which are occupied with a stud each and peened, next is the eight spike star washer, then  1 disks with 16 stud holes occupying eight studs (skipping one hole) and peened into place and pressed over top of the 8 existing studs of the end-disc offset by one stud. Next is another star washer then a disk again with eight studs peened onto it and pushed over the ends of the eigth first and second existing studs while the first studs now get peened to the third disk. Again a spacer star washer and the next disk is fitted with eight studs and peened to it and pressed over the protruding studs and again eight are peened to it and so on.... This way the studs get all fastened in a staggered fashion while fastened to every disc on both ends.

Peening means flattening and spreading the end of the stud, locking the stud into place on the disk. This part is a little cumbersome, because you have to build yourselves a tool. For example a rod pressed into a base plate with strips and washers coinciding with the number of the disc and spacing of your runner you are planning to peen, which you slide into the runner as you go and use them for a solid spacing base mass to peen every individual stud without bending or spreading the individual disks out of alignment.

Material used is stainless steel 316 which is good for 800° C or use better grade.

The star spacers along with the washer spacers and thicker rivet spacers are important for snap torque, especially in the hydraulic motor extending the star points by 20% if you want to lay rubber with your motor bike. By using the press stamp method creating protuberances on the discs of the disc thickness formed on the tool and die while punching out the discs both, the washers and stars can be eliminated as long one does not forget the distance spacers on the shaft. You can even try to leave the star centers out of the discs using bolts from one end-disk to the other holding the disk pack together. It's called the overhung method. There is probably a good reason why Tesla never did it that way on bigger turbines. Centrifugal force combined with heat and expansion for two. Would probably be OK in the hydraulic motor though. He did use it on the 40 lbs.steam powered 1 KW turbo alternator which turned over 30'000 rpm.

Dynamic balancing

Place the runner on a long thin shaft on coned sleeve-ends and bearings and spin the whole thing as fast as possible. Strap a disc grinder onto some sliding contraption and grind the circumference of the runner until it is running true. At the same time chamfer all flat disc OD's to a sharp point for easy disc space penetration of the gases, very important. Speed Auto shop is another way of balancing the runner by drilling the end plates, which calls for at least 3/16" end plates.

IMPORTANT

To make sure that you do not venture onto some frustrated goose chase, I am suggesting, you start first with your fuel source. You most likely will go for the hydrogen setup, hence I would get it going first.

Along with the hydrogen gas you need stored compressed air for starting.

Second, I would build the combustion chamber of choice and set it up on some temporary performing arrangement.  Make sure the gas side is under pressure, better would be both. For safety, light your torch and clamp it near the exhaust when starting out first time. A Valvular conduit works like a reed valve on a pulsejet, then you are away to the races, If you get it to run without the check valves it won’t be quite as fuel efficient and probably won’t idle well. In any case you do need some sort of backflow prevention. Not until you succeeded to produce those hot gases out of the narrow combustion chamber slot, are you ready to run a Tesla turbine.
In case you're thinking reed valve and pulse jet instead Valvular......forget it... those reed valves only last for short periods besides being very noisy and, and...etc.. etc.

Thirdly, I would make up my mind what system I would use to produce the steady 15 -25 amps needed for the 12V consumption, Bedini or driven alternator. If you go for the above power package, then simply run the alternator or Bedini charger hydrostatically or small hydraulic Tesla disc drive. Just make sure you use two batteries for long life.

One could mount a pulley at the end of the shaft by creating a coolant intake off the side on the water pump with an end-housing seal.

The other alternative of course is mounting a Bedini monopole with own small primary battery beside the engine running itself charging the second battery while the third one is being discharged due to hydrogen production.

Also keep in mind that you can produce hydrogen with a Bedini monopole… etc. etc. etc.

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