The Tesla Turbine is not to be confused with the Tesla Magnet Motor. Both of these inventions look similar and often get mentioned together but are not the same at all.
The magnet motor is a perpetual motion device which runs on magnetic energy, basically creating a continuous supply of free energy. On the other hand, the tesla turbine requires an external energy supply usually in the form of steam or some other fluid supplied at pressure.
This article is going to discuss the Tesla Turbine in terms of how it works, it’s overall efficiency and the best place to get plans to build your own model.
The Tesla Turbine, also known as the bladeless motor, boundary layer turbine and flat-
The main difference between the tesla turbine and the more common conventional turbines is that the Tesla Turbine does not have rotor blades or anything which provides any sort of resistance in order to turn the turbine.
Here’s a quick breakdown of how it works.
Basically the design features a number of carefully packed smooth parallel disks mounted on a shaft and arranged inside a sealed chamber. The dimensions and quantity of the disks can differ depending on factors related to particular application.
Whenever any gas or fluid is permitted to go in the chamber and pass between your disks, it causes the disks to turn by way of the boundary layer effect, which in turn rotates the shaft. Since the fluid moves in natural pathways of least resistance, free of the constraints and troublesome forces triggered by vanes or rotor blades, it encounters gradual alterations in velocity and direction. What this means is more energy is shipped towards the turbine.
This rotary motion may be used in a number of ways, from running pumps, blowers and compressors to running cars and planes. Actually, Tesla stated the turbine was the best and also the most simply designed rotary engine ever designed.
Tesla Turbine Kit
Unfortunately there hasn’t been any major commercial or government investment into the development of the Tesla Turbine.
Many universities and government agencies have successfully built and constructed Tesla Turbine models, but there are not currently any models available for commercial sale.
The two most popular and best models of the Tesla Turbine can be found at the Stanford University Tesla Boundary Layer Turbine page and the University of Washington Physics Department site. The Stanford site includes single and multi phase Tesla Turbine models with broad instructions and thumbnail pictures, which you can enlarge. The site design is one very long page and is quite basic. The UW site has steps to make your own tesla turbine from hard drive parts and includes instructions, pictures and a You Tube video.
Tesla Turbine Efficiency
The turbine efficiency from the fluid or gas Tesla turbine is believed to be above 60%, reaching no more than 95 %. Tesla pointed out it would take 2-
Probably the most likely scenario would be that the first commercial turbines are going to be single stage models, most likely to be used in hybrid technology products..
Tesla Turbine Plans
For domestic energy production the Tesla Turbine is not really the best choice. Tesla’s perpetual motion magnet motor device is far easier to make and run for home made energy. But….. if you really insist on making your own Tesla Turbine there are two very good sites to help you and they are; the Tesla Engine Builders Association which provides free tesla turbine plans, drawings and photos but the site is difficult to navigate and not user friendly. The next best site is the Phoenix Turbine Builders Club which have plans for $90 plus $6 postage because it comes as a CD (Update: we don’t recommend these plans because we’ve heard lots of negative comments about them, check out our top product reviews on this page).