immediately felt. "There we have a

immediately felt. "There we have a disk, or rather a series of disks, revolving in a fluid--the air," said the
inventor. "You need no proof to tell you that the air is being agitated and propelled violently. If you will hold
your hand over the center of these disks--you see the centers have been cut away--you will feel the suction
as air is drawn in to be expelled from the peripheries of the disks. "Now, suppose these revolving disks were
enclosed in an air tight case, so constructed that the air could enter only at one point and be expelled only at
another--what would we have?" "You'd have an air pump," I suggested. "Exactly--an air pump or blower,"
said Dr. Tesla. "There is one now in operation delivering ten thousand cubic feet of air a minute. "Now, come
over here."...
...He stepped across the hall and into another room, where
three or four draughts men were at work and various
mechanical and electrical contrivances were scattered
about. At one side of the room was what appeared to be a
zinc or aluminum tank, divided into two sections, one above
the other, while a pipe that ran along the wall above the
upper division of the tank was connected with a little
aluminum case about the size and shape of a small alarm
clock. A tiny electric motor was attached to a shaft that
protruded from one side of the aluminum case. The lower
division of the tank was filled with water. "Inside of this
aluminum case are several disks mounted on a shaft and
immersed in a fluid, water," said Dr. Tesla. "From this lower
tank the water has free access to the case enclosing the disks. This pipe leads from the periphery of the
case. I turn the current on, the motor turns the disks and as I open this valve in the pipe the water flows."...
He turned the valve and the water certainly did flow. Instantly a stream that
would have filled a barrel in a very few minutes began to run out of the pipe
into the upper part of the tank and thence into the lower tank. "This is only
a toy," said Dr. Tesla. "There are only half a dozen disks--'runners,' I call
them--each less than three inches in diameter, inside of that case. They
are just like the disks you saw on the first motor--no vanes, blades or
attachments of any kind. Just perfectly smooth, flat disks revolving in their
own planes and pumping water because of the viscosity and adhesion of
the fluid. One such pump now in operation, with eight disks, eighteen
inches in diameter, pumps four thousand gallons a minute to a height of
360 feet." We went back into the big, well lighted office. I was beginning to
grasp the new Tesla principle. "Suppose now we reversed the operation,"
continued the inventor. "You have seen the disks acting as a pump.
Suppose we had water, or air under pressure, or steam under pressure, or gas under pressure, and let it run
into the case in which the disks are contained--what would happen?"...
http://www.frank.germano.com/teslaturbine.htm (7 of 15)2004/11/22 09:47:13 AM
Tesla's Turbine: The Tesla, Bladeless Boundary Disk Turbine
"The disks would revolve and any machinery attached to
the shaft would be operated--you would convert the pump
into an engine," I suggested. "That is exactly what would
happen--what does happen," replied Dr. Tesla. "It is an
engine that does all that engineers have ever dreamed of
an engine doing, and more. Down at the Waterside power
station of the New York Edison Company, through their
courtesy, I have had a number of such engines in
operation. In one of them the disks are only nine inches in
diameter and the whole working part is two inches thick.
With steam as the propulsive fluid it develops 110-horse
power, and could do twice as much." "You have got what
Professor Langley was trying to evolve for his flying
machine--an engine that will give a horse power for a
pound of weight," I suggested...
Ten Horse Power to the Pound !
"I have got more than that," replied Dr. Tesla. "I have an engine that will give ten horse power to the pound of
weight. That is twenty-five times as powerful as the lightest weight engine in use today. The lightest gas
engine used on airplanes weighs two and one-half pounds to the horse power. With two and one-half pounds
of weight I can develop twenty-five horse power."
"That means the solution of the problem of flying," I suggested. "Yes, and many more," was the reply. "The
applications of this principle, both for imparting power to fluids, as in pumps, and for deriving power from
fluids, as in turbine, are boundless. It costs almost nothing to make, there is nothing about it to get out of
order, it is reversible--simply have two ports for the gas or steam, to enter by, one on each side, and let it into
one side or other.
There are no blades or vanes to get out of order--the steam turbine is a delicate thing." I remembered the
bushels of broken blades that were gathered out of the turbine casings of the first turbine equipped
steamship to cross the ocean, and realized the importance of this phase of the new engine.
http://www.frank.germano.com/teslaturbine.htm (8 of 15)2004/11/22 09:47:13 AM
Tesla's Turbine: The Tesla, Bladeless Boundary Disk Turbine
"Then, too," Dr. Tesla went on, "there are no delicate
adjustments to be made. The distance between the disks is
not a matter of microscopic accuracy and there is no
necessity for minute clearances between the disks and the
case. All one needs is some disks mounted on a shaft,
spaced a little distance apart and cased so that a fluid can
enter at one point and go out at another. If the fluid enters
at the center and goes out at the periphery it is a pump.
If it enters at the periphery and goes out at the center it is a
motor. "Coupling these engines in series, one can do away
with gearing in machinery. Factories can be equipped
without shafting. The motor is especially adapted to
automobiles, for it will run on gas explosions as well as on
steam. The gas or steam can be let into a dozen ports all
around the rim of the case if desired. It is possible to run it
as a gas engine with a continuous flow of gas, gasoline and
air being mixed and the continuous combustion causing
expansion and pressure to operate the motor.
The expansive power of steam, as well as its propulsive
power, can be utilized as in a turbine or a reciprocating
engine. By permitting the propelling fluid to move along the
lines of least resistance a considerably larger proportion of the available power is utilized. "As an air
compressor it is highly efficient. There is a large engine of this type now in practical operation as an air
compressor and giving remarkable service. Refrigeration on a scale hitherto never attempted will be
practical, through the use of this engine in compressing air, and the manufacture of liquid air commercially is
now entirely feasible. "With a thousand horse power engine, weighing only one hundred pounds, imagine the
possibilities in automobiles, locomotives and steamships. In the space now occupied by the engines of the
Lusitanian twenty-five times her 80,000 horse power could be developed, were it possible to provide boiler
capacity sufficient to furnish the necessary steam." "And it makes the airplane practical," I suggested.
"Not the airplane, the flying machine," responded Dr. Tesla. "Now you have struck the point in which I am
most deeply interested--the object toward which I have been devoting my energies for more than twenty
years--the dream of my life. It was in seeking the means of making the perfect flying machine that I
developed this engine.
"Twenty years ago I believed that I would be the first man to fly; that I was on the track of accomplishing what
no one else was anywhere near reaching. I was working entirely in electricity then and did not realize that the
gasoline engine was approaching a perfection that was going to make the airplane feasible. There is nothing
new about the airplane but its engine, you know. "What I was working on twenty years ago was the wireless
transmission of electric power. My idea was a flying machine propelled by an electric motor, with power
supplied from stations on the earth. I have not accomplished this as yet, but am confident that I will in time.
"When I found that I had been anticipated as to the flying machine, by men working in a different field I began
to study the problem from other angles, to regard it as a mechanical rather than an electrical problem. I felt
certain there must be some means of obtaining power that was better than any now in use, and by vigorous
use of my gray matter for a number of years I grasped the possibilities of the principle of the viscosity and
adhesion of fluids and conceived the mechanism of my engine.