Build a 15,000 rpm Tesla Turbine using hard drive platters

 by sbtroy
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Step 9: Complete turbine and movie



Please post (or email me) any questions or comments and I'll do my best to answer them.

Thanks for reading,
Steven
 
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maikel2 says: May 4, 2013. 3:46 AM
a conventional rotary compressor runs more than 100k rpm to develop vacuum to sucks outside air continuously thus compressed it.if this device run at that speed can it become a compressor???
FFX says: Sep 17, 2012. 6:07 PM
Make a good gearbox and put it to a generator which will charge the compressor ;)
4lifenerdfighter in reply to FFXNov 2, 2012. 11:05 AM
Law of conservation of energy prevents this. Gear backlash, for example? Air speed being lost to exhaust?
bart.p says: Jun 3, 2012. 11:21 PM
great project! have you ever done any test on how much vacuum this thing can generate? im currently designing a turbine that would pump air and have the shaft spun with an electric motor, one of my constrains is the intake size so i need to suck in as much air as possible and preferably compressed it as well
bart.p in reply to bart.pJun 3, 2012. 11:22 PM
if you ave more info about these turbines please let me know, bart.patrzalek@gmail.com
den316a says: May 8, 2012. 8:38 AM
my Question is how much torck does this have can u run a generator off of it?
chairchild says: Oct 24, 2010. 4:25 PM
if you added some exhaust port, in-line with the cutouts on the disc, efficiency would increase massively. The way it's working in this setup, is pretty much choking the output down to pitiful levels - easily one of the nicest-looking ones I've seen in a while though

and the perpetual motion comments? LMAO!!
KimberlyP in reply to chairchildJan 10, 2012. 1:32 AM
Remember that Lord Kelvin was LMAO about the idea of powered flight!

If perpetual in the sense of forever, well highly improbable.

As to coupled occilator's with irreversible flows it happens in biology.

Thermodynamics
While the 1st law seems on the sturdiest ground experimentally.
The 2nd law as applied to thermodynamics is about energy density. Objects at a particular temperature if unrestricted by activation energies move spontaneously from high to low, and from dense to less dense.

3rd law that you can never break even except at 0 Kelvin is the add on law that may be cracked and or found exceptions too. Zeroth Law is just common sense as the commutative law of addition. It sets T.

3rd law is valid when considering reversible flows, but if one looks at coupled occilator s using irreversible flows out of phase one can see immediately that this is not necessarily so.

As to Boltzman you can argue that with irreversible flows that the state is not exactly returned to the same probabilistic state as before, but the averages can be! Think about that! That fits right in with Poincare thinking which informed Boltzmans work. So there is times arrow locally and as we extend the domain we get back to symmetry. Something exhibited in the real world, in chaos theory, and many other physical phenomena. Geometrically we can think of fractals.

So while it is true that in a simple expression of reversible processes the 3rd law is true, that we can only break even at 0 K and also can never reach 0 K because of Zeroth. We can always couple irreversible flows, which from a probabilistic standpoint cannot return to original state, but from a physical energy standpoint can return to the same average energy.
Jar Sqwuid says: Nov 16, 2011. 3:53 PM
Perpetual energy? That's all fine and dandy if you can find metal that will never rust or corrode, or other materials that are otherwise impervious to the various elements. As well as trying to complete Tesla's failed project to transmit energy wirelessly, because otherwise you're going to need a load of veeeeerrrrrryyyy long extension cables.

Awesome project, really :) I wanna try it!
T_T_ in reply to Jar SqwuidNov 21, 2011. 10:39 AM
tesla's wireless energy plan didn't fail, it was canceled.
raybent says: Apr 11, 2011. 11:17 AM
Actually, perpetual "motion" is entirely possible - you just have to choose the correct speed. Once adjusted to the correct speed, the friction reduces to zero. Hence it will run at that speed forever. The correct speed? Zero. Remember - zero is a valid number.
beehard44 in reply to raybentNov 16, 2011. 4:31 AM
I agree. Perpetual motion IS possible. It's just that it'll need regular maintenance and i doubt if it'll be able to produce excess energy.
Still, nothing is impossible.
c.doyle in reply to raybentSep 5, 2011. 10:03 AM
Even if you reduce standard friction to 0, which is virtually impossible as it is, there is still 'quantum friction' that occurs even in a vacuum: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927994.100-vacuum-has-friction-after-all.html.

And perpetual motion means that the machine generates more energy than it uses, which at 0 for 0 it wouldn't.
luig in reply to c.doyleNov 7, 2011. 9:03 PM
you are right but it would be a Flywheel energy storage device instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage
theanthropicalthane in reply to raybentAug 6, 2011. 11:22 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the number 'zero' is that zero is not a number, but a representation of the absence of a value. So it's not a number, but the absence of a number.
KimberlyP in reply to raybentApr 26, 2011. 6:44 AM
Superfluidity, Superconductivity.... Are other ways to reducing to 0.

Get them working at Standard Temps and you will have yourself a Nobel Prize.

jpetrill reese in reply to raybentApr 11, 2011. 3:51 PM
Well Yes, I guess if a disk spinning at "zero" speed counts as being in perpetual motion then it is possible. Sadly it would be able to do exactly zero work.
ilpug in reply to jpetrill reeseMay 17, 2011. 7:44 PM
it would be able to do that amount of work forever though!
IncrediblyCondensedBlackMatter in reply to ilpugJun 5, 2011. 12:19 AM
we need to go to the perpetual energy subculture with this. it's elegant and true! the kind of argument i expect to see on xkcd.com
kanhai says: Jul 8, 2011. 6:32 AM
can i know how much pressure we will need for this working at 10000 rpm
seansarvela says: Apr 7, 2011. 3:56 PM
your design looks good. Im making one that is similar, although mine looks terrible.
CodfishCatfish says: Jun 24, 2010. 3:44 PM
In my opinion it is unwise to say never. As far as perpetual motion is concerned I don't think it is far off in being sussed. We have the science of hear and now so are limited by discovery. They say the day we invent the superconductor that runs at room temperatiure we can build a generator in a matchbox. As yet we have not discovered other planets minerals or structures to say that one element combined with another may not unlock this potential. I think the experiment touches on what NASA should be working towards generating electricity in space from sources other than chemical or solar or even nuclear and where the experiment would significantly reduce any friction in outerspace where gravity does not act on the structure. You spin a satellite in space and it would spin forever (we would like to think) and in future we may find a metal that does exactly what a superconductor does and defies gravity. Perpetual motion is not impossible just not with todays knowledge. Think if you could defy gravity to raise a weight and then reapply gravity to let it fall and gather the energy and repeat the process. Use a superconductor as the weight and then you have perpetual motion. Awesome insight and a very well thought out project 10/10....
tanmanknex in reply to CodfishCatfishMar 31, 2011. 6:28 PM
The problem with perpetual motion is as soon as you apply any load like to make a generator for example, it increases the energy needed to keep it perpetual, thus removing the perpetuality. It needs to be better than perpetual motion, it needs to generate more energy as it goes, thus speeding up. Think of it like this system below:
E-5+5=E
E is energy
-5 is the amount of energy required to keep it going
+5 is the amount of energy produced
Now imagine there's a load of 1 on it
E-6+5=E-1
It will slow.
switch62 in reply to CodfishCatfishJun 25, 2010. 3:36 PM
True perpetual motion is probably not possible but you can get close even with todays technology. We already have some very large perpetual motion happening. That is anything in orbit in space. Like the moon orbiting earth, or the planets orbiting the sun. It is still not "true" perpetual motion but since it will take untold billions of years to all stop, it may as well be perpetual. In space there is almost nothing except the thin gasses and solar winds to cause friction, and gravity keeps it all going. We also have magnetic bearings that in a vacuum can allow things to spin forever, almost. Even the interaction of magnetic fields causes minute amounts of friction. Even if you had a perpetual motion machine, all it can do is keep the same amount of energy that started it moving in the first place. As soon as you try to take some energy out, like generate electricity or get mechanical work, it will slow down or stop. I won't say never to perpetual motion but our current laws of physics don't seem to allow for it to exist, or be useful.
KimberlyP in reply to switch62Apr 25, 2011. 4:58 AM
Yes and then you have the Clarendon labs Clock running off a Zamboni pile ringing that bell for about 100 years.

The reason the battery has not worn down yet is its a very good regenerator.

Also you could have thermal power as in a coupled chemical occilator which would pass its thermal energy back and forth for a very long time and its resulting fluid power from the phase change would be greater than the losses of the thermal energy.

It's not perpetual, in that in time you will lose mass and you will lose energy, but if most of the energy is internal and insulated it can continue for a long time as long as it gets the small kick.

legless in reply to switch62Mar 6, 2011. 12:32 AM
Everywhere here you say perpetual motion does happen but also keep saying "almost" or not "true" PM. Which is it - perpetual motion or almost? The motion of satellites in orbit is not perpetual. It decays. The distance of the moon from Earth is increasing every year. The speed of rotation of the Earth is slowing every year. All due to other forces and losses which cause the system to decay. Gravity powers the universe but there are still "losses".
KimberlyP in reply to leglessApr 26, 2011. 6:49 AM
In the end resistance is futile! That or resistance makes the effort futile, I forget which... :P

The best that can be done is highly regenerative systems which are coupled occilators.

In the end you only delay the inevitable.

such a cruel world.
switch62 in reply to leglessMar 6, 2011. 3:01 AM
BTW your example of the moon moving away from earth and the earth's spin slowing down is very interesting.  It's actually a transfer of energy between the earth and moon.  Gravity, the spin of the earth, and the tidal effect is actually speeding up the moon (thereby increasing orbit distance) and slowing the spin of the earth.

In 16 billion years it will stabilise, the moon's orbit will be 1.6 times that of today and an earth day will be 55 current days long.  You might then see the moon's orbit start to decay.  But in 7 billon years the sun will be a red giant and destroy the earth and moon, so it's all academic.
switch62 in reply to leglessMar 6, 2011. 2:29 AM
Depends on your definition of perpetual :)

strict definition: continuing or enduring forever.
practical definition: continuing an extremely long time.

Satellites are still in contact with a very thin atmosphere and so the orbit will decay.  They aren't really in space.

Since the orbit of planets and moons will last billions of years, for all practical purposes it may as well be perpetual.  It is of course not "true" perpetual motion as it will not last forever.

Yes, there will always be losses in any system (current physics) but it is the scale of the losses compared to the energy in the system that will determine how long the system will be in motion.

For me billions of years is practically perpetual motion.
runical1991 in reply to switch62Dec 23, 2010. 11:15 AM
I think it could be useful. think about is. If it is possible and the machine is not too big, it could serve as a new kind of battery, since you can get back all of the energy you put in. So there we would have our perfect energy storage ;-)

correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it would be very useful, if it were possible...
switch62 in reply to runical1991Dec 23, 2010. 3:13 PM
Yes. I know in the 80's engineers were looking at energy storage using flywheels on magnetic bearings. The flywheels were designed to act as a motor to convert electical energy into rotational energy, and then act as a generator to get electrical energy out again.

It would need to spin at very high rpm or be very heavy. The problem is the bigger the flywheel the stronger the magnetic bearings need to be, I think there were/are limits to this and you could not make a large enough device to be practical. Also a large flywheel would need to be stationary as any large movments might cause the magnetic bearings to make physical contact. With the energies involved that could literally rip the device apart (explode).

The size of a flywheel to hold the same amount as a car battery would probably be much bigger and heavier than a car battery. Even if you could make it small enough you would never get 100% efficiency due to electrical resistance, magnetic "friction", etc.  A room tempreture super conductor would solve some of these problems, and make it very efficient.

It seems chemical storage at the moment is a more practical solution.  Chemical batteries are fairly simple devices and easy to make.  Batteries are becoming smaller with greater capacities every year.  New technologies will make them even more so.
KimberlyP in reply to switch62Apr 26, 2011. 6:54 AM
http://techportal.eere.energy.gov/technology.do/techID=25

They have a higher energy density storage than conventional batteries.

Also Ultracaps can't store the energy density but the can charge and discharge large amounts of power quickly with low ESR. Low ESR = essentially resistance to discharging their power. Conventional batteries if you try to discharge to quick will heat up and resist discharging.
hyratel in reply to switch62Feb 10, 2011. 6:46 PM
Porsche has built a race-class car with a flywheel dynamic storage. another automaker has done similar, but iirc it's not on mass-production yet.
notanemo in reply to switch62Sep 14, 2010. 2:31 AM
as the speed of something increases, newtons law of motion becomes more wrong. try out something that 'could' be perpetual motion, then speed it up, and you could take energy out of it.
KimberlyP in reply to notanemoApr 26, 2011. 6:15 AM
I'm assuming you are referencing MV^2?

Yes but losses tend to go up too. However if you had room temperature superconductors and you spun in an absolute vacuum. (Absolute vacuum being impossible) You could accelerate to the speed of light, except what would you make the material from? But if you could and couple the two of them together, but then the problem would be switching which would be limited to the speed of light.

Information problem.

argh Nature gets you again. Now if you can find away around the speed limit of the Universe.... ? Happy hunting.
zaney says: Jun 3, 2010. 1:52 PM
 as a thought, would it be possible to connect 2 of these together in such a way that with a motor attached to one you could pump enough air to run the second, the second being set up as a small generator to run the motor?
Dinuc in reply to zaneyFeb 13, 2011. 10:15 AM
Unfortunately not.

Motors and generators are not 100% efficient. The best motors are about 95% efficient and the best generators about 80%. The rest of the energy is lost to heat and noise.

The Tesla turbine is also not 100% efficient, let's assume it is 90 %.

So if you put 100 units of energy into the motor, you get 95 units out to turn the turbine. The turbine then outputs 85.5 units of energy (95 x 90%) into the other turbine, which outputs 76.95 units of energy (85.5 x x90%).
This turns the generator which outputs 61.56 units of energy (76.95 x 80%) which is fed back into the motor ad the cycle begins again.

So your system runs down very quickly.
MichelMoermans in reply to zaneyJun 5, 2010. 9:20 AM
I think your trying to make a perpetuum mobile out of it (or however you say that in English) a device that needs no extra power once it is running. Unfortunatly that is impossible due to friction. Everything that connects in there is using friction and that uses up some power. I can't give you the high tech science explenation but I do know that if you should try it it would work fine in the beginning after which it would slow down and stop.
TarScrap in reply to MichelMoermansJun 8, 2010. 12:57 PM
"Perpetual motion machine" is the phrase you're looking for. Friction and waste heat both mean that the total amount of energy in the closed system would bleed out over time. One would have to attain > 100% efficiency in order to keep it running, much less do any actual work with it.
KimberlyP in reply to TarScrapApr 25, 2011. 5:16 AM
Query me this? If hypothetically you had a box where you could lose no heat or mass. (Even Silicon Aerogels lose heat) How would you lose energy?

Also if this system was a coupled occilator where the natural reaction is pressure out of phase with temperature such that they could never reach equilibrium unless they lost mas or heat, what would you have?

I should say this is academic as there is no perfect insulator or seal.

But there are chemical systems which act in this manner and they require only small energy inputs from the outside to make up for losses. Their energy flows are much higher, how does one explain this. Resonance.

And internal energy is conserved and these small energy inputs feed one another. Take a look at the science of chaos or google chemical occilator.

So you can get more energy out of a device than you put in but you cant get more energy out that the entire energy flow of the system!

Think of it as a flow issue. Some of the flow can be converted to work but you cant convert 100% to work and you most certainly cant generate more than the flow. Thing is in dynamic systems you can have a dual flow system.

Say heat and a fluid flow. A chemical occilator passes heat an fluid back and forth but they do this slightly out of phase with one another. In facts its required or they would be at equilibrium. The heat is conserved as is the mass. The fluid flow can drive a turbine and not lose energy. The reason they don't reach equilibrium is that when one evolves a fluid its endothermic and the other is exothermic. In the real world this is temperature sensitive and they always leak mass in enough time.
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