Experimental and numerical investigations of Tesla turbine

Abstract

Tesla turbine is a bladeless turbine and its principle of operation is based on shear stress arising from fluid viscosity and turbulence. A prototype of Tesla turbine is an object of numerical and experimental investigations presented in the paper. Experimental investigations were carried out for different inlet pressures and compared to results from numerical investigations. The roughness of the disc surface was measured and taken into account in the numerical analysis. Numerical investigations were performed in CFX 17.1 commercial software for steady state and transient. Comparison of power and efficiency vs rotational velocity characteristics shows relatively good agreement between experiment and CFD.