This instructable deals with how to build a Tesla turbine.

The turbine pictured above was built by my team and I as a group project for college.

The design was developed and refined using Solidworks Flow Simulation 2014.

The pdf drawings of the plans are in the final step. Here is the grabcad page also:

https://grabcad.com/library/tesla-turbine-group-pr...

There is an online calculator for rpm, disc gaps and estimated horsepower figures available on the web. The short and sweet of it is: smaller gaps between the discs = better, higher rpm = better.

The turbine was assembled using hard disk platters from inside hard drives off computers. We got them from our local recycling center.

Step 1: Assembling the Rotor

We made the rotor from steel as per the drawings, with a small flanged clamp to hold the disks in place. Disk gap is 0.6mm. Bearings were purchased locally. The maximum rpm for the bearings was 23,000rpm however we ran it to 28,000rpm for a short period of time. Disk exhausts are 6 x 8mm.

Note the assembled rotor will need the disks machined in a lathe to make their outer faces concentric.

Step 2: Manufacturing the Casing

The casing is aluminum with 0.5mm of a gap from the diameter of the rotor (0.25mm either side).

The air inlet pipe is welded onto the casing. The curve of the casing to the inlet pipe was traced from a 1:1 scale drawing.

Step 3: Assembly and Running

Pictured above is:

The inlet jet (during manufacture) to funnel the gas through a nozzle and achieve the highest velocity possible at the rotor edge. The width of the gap between the two sides of the nozzle is 0.5mm.

The complete plans are also above and on the grabcad page

https://grabcad.com/library/tesla-turbine-group-pr...

Any questions?