|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
The Tesla turbine is a bladeless turbine patented by Nikola Tesla in 1913. We came across the design just recently and decided it was simple enough to be printed on our desktop 3D printer. So we did. Our objective was to print our own turbine with the smallest number of metal components. The only non-printed parts are the central shaft, 2xm6 brass washers, inlet tube clamp and the m3 nuts and bolts holding it together. Once finished the
turbine was tested on an 80 psi airline. It achieved 15,000 rpm (yes
fifteen thousand). |
||||
|
|
This is the Rapman printer we used. Its a low cost 3D desktop printer from bits from bytes. We purchased it 2 years ago in kit form to experiment with 3D printing. we used ABS in our design and generated the parts using Pro-E 3D Cad software. We came across the design for the turbine on a Thursday. The turbine was assembled and tested the following Monday. The disks were printed on the Friday with one side printed Friday night and I set off the remaining side when I called into work on the Saturday. We have modified our printer by replacing the supplied bed with a heated one. This allows us to print without a support raft giving us practically zero waste, faster printing and a perfectly flat lower face. On the down side the setup and calibration of the printer has to be very precise. With what other technology can you come across a novel design on one day and have have a working turbine 4 days later? |
|||
|
|
The design uses multiple
bladeless disks with a very small gap in between. we guessed a
design using six 1mm thick disks 150mm diameter.
The support arms in the centre were 2mm thick to give a 1mm gap between surfaces. We left a 6mm hole in the centre to glue in a shaft. Each disk took 45 minutes to print as we set it to a high quality. The outer shells took a little longer (5 hours). |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
||||
