Patent Application
20140196432
The present invention relates to the field of combustion engine constructed from evenly spaced stacks of smooth parallel discs that utilizes the mechanism of laminar boundary layer flow interaction to transfer the energy from the combustion gas to the smooth rotating discs which turn a pair of rotating rods.
There is a need in our world for a new kind of engine that can utilize clean burning combustible fuel. Moreover, such an engine must be versatile enough to be able to utilize many different kinds of fuel. The engine must also be robust enough to utilize fuel sources with high amount of impurities. The engine must also be simple enough to be built affordably.
Recognizing these needs, Nicola Tesla invented the Tesla turbine in his 1913 U.S. Pat. No. 1,061,206. Almost at the same time, Wilkinson et al also invented something very similar to a Tesla Turbine in his 1912 U.S. Pat. No. 1,013,248. These types of turbine utilize the effect of boundary layer laminar flow on smooth parallel evenly spaced discs to transfer the energy or momentum from the flowing gases or fluid to the discs. The high temperature flowing gases or fluid rotate the discs which in turn rotate a rod connected to the center of the discs. The rod can then be used to drive generators or do other kind of useful works. In his 1921 British patent GB186083, Tesla describes his vision of the use of his Tesla turbine as the engine that will be able to meet the energy needs of the future. Tesla describes the versatility of his Tesla turbine, its robustness and its ease of manufacturability. For a century since his invention, people have experimented with different variations of the Tesla turbine as an engine. In their 1961 patent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,007,311, Amero et al design an axial intake and exhaust turbine, with the combustible gas generated from an external source. Also in 1961, in their patent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,010,281, Ceirenka et al design a toroidal combustion chamber around an impeller turbine. This is an early example where the combustion chamber is a toroidal chamber surrounding the turbine. In his 2004 patent, U.S. Pat. No. 6,779,964, Dial disclosed a toroidal chamber surrounding the Tesla turbine parallel discs which is very similar to the 2009 patent application by Bergen, US 2010/0107647 A1, who disclosed a Tesla Gas Turbine with the toroidal chamber surrounding a Tesla turbine. Over a century, we see the evolution of the Tesla turbine from one where the gas is generated from an external combustion source to one where the combustion chamber is toroidal and surround the Tesla turbine.
Despite many improvement over the century, problems still remain in the prior arts. The prior arts utilize an external combustion source which makes for a very bulky Tesla turbine system. In Nicola Tesla British patent, the entire system of combusting gases connected to the Tesla turbine would take up an entire room. Amero et al design a system where the combustion gases are generated externally, which also lead to a bulky system. Bergen designs his toroidal combustion chamber to surround the Tesla turbine, but it is still external to the Tesla turbine, which remains bulky because the toroidal combustion chamber would necessarily increase the diameter of the entire machine beyond the diameter of the Tesla turbine. Furthermore, a toroidal combustion chamber surrounding a Tesla turbine is complicated to manufacture and assemble.
The objective of our invention is to push this evolution of the Tesla turbine a step further, by incorporating the combustion chamber inside the Tesla turbine. This improvement will provide a number of benefits. By incorporating the combustion chamber inside the Tesla turbine, this improvement simplified the design and manufacturability of the Tesla turbine significantly. By having the combustion gases as close as possible to the Tesla turbine discs, this improvement increase the efficiency of the energy transfer from the combustion gases to the rotating discs. By designing the Tesla turbine to be as simple as possible allows the Tesla turbine to be coupled to one another into an array of Tesla turbines to increase the amount of torque generated. These benefits will be described in detail later.
This objective can be attained by our invention, the Tesla Twin Turbines Combustion Engine Module, which is designed to be modular so that an array of these modules can be coupled to one another to create a more powerful Tesla Twin Turbines Combustion Engine Array. In brief summary, the module comprises of two identical Tesla turbines welded together along the air-flow intake interfaces to create a chamber that will serve as the combustion chamber. An air-fuel inlet and an ignition inlet are channeled into the combustion chamber. The air-fuel mixture, which can be varied in composition and amount, and which can increase or decrease or injected continuously or alternating between fuel or air flow is injected into the chamber, where an ignition device, such as a sparkplug inserted into the ignition device inlet would ignite the air-fuel mixture into a combustion gas which flow in both directions to drive the two opposite stacks of parallel discs whose rotation drive the connecting rods. These rotating rods can be coupled to a generator to produce electricity or be coupled to a transmission gear system to drive the wheels of an automobile. Because of the compact size of our module, it can be easily transported or incorporated into automobiles as engines. In summary, our invention provides a novel and significant improvement over the prior arts in terms of ease of manufacturability, higher efficiency, and smaller compact size.
We will describe in detail our invention, the Tesla Twin Turbines Combustion Engine Module, which will be called the “module” from here on.
Our module is compact and can be assembled together into an array because of its modular nature. The modules can be coupled to each other by coupling the ends of the rods together. Those skilled in the mechanical arts will find many different ways to couple the rods together. For greater flexibility in assembling the array of modules, universal joints can be used to couple the rods together.
In the past century, development of the Tesla turbine as a useful machine has been hampered by the lack of progress in material sciences. Many believed that one major reason why the Tesla turbine has not been widely adopted result from the lack of suitable material that can withstand high temperature and high rotational speed without warping. Parallel discs are prone to warp at high temperature and high rotational speed. In the past, to overcome this problem, parallel discs were made very thick, using steel or iron, resulting in a very bulky and heavy Tesla turbine, which limited their application in many areas. Currently, material advances have progressed to the point where this problem can be solved with light weight material that can withstand high temperature and high rotational speed without warping.
Our preferred material to use for constructing our module is a new kind of alloy developed within the past decade, and described in a 2002 patent, U.S. Pat. No. 6,399,020, by Lee et al, who described an aluminum alloy with 14% Si, which produced an alloy that can withstand high temperature without warping. This alloy is also known as the NASA aluminum alloy and is used commercially in a wide range of high temperature application requiring thermal stability and high strength. For example, this alloy has been used to produce pistons for use in automotive piston engines. We will use this Al-Si alloy to produce the stacks of parallel discs as well as the metal housing and rotating rods for our modules. The advantage of this Al-Si alloy is its lightweight, high strength, and thermal stability at high temperature. To enhance the alloy thermal stability and strength at high temperature, we prefer to use an aluminum alloy with 18% Si.
