Pump
If a similar set of disks and a housing with an involute shape (versus circular for the turbine) are used, the device can be used as a pump. In this configuration a motor is attached to the shaft. The fluid enters near the center, is given energy by the disks, then exits at the periphery. The Tesla turbine does not use friction in the conventional sense; precisely, it avoids it, and uses adhesion (the Coandă effect) and viscosity instead. It utilizes the boundary layer effect on the disc blades.
Smooth rotor disks were originally proposed, but these gave poor starting torque. Tesla subsequently discovered that smooth rotor disks with small washers bridging the disks in ~12–24 places around the perimeter of a 10″ disk and a second ring of 6–12 washers at a sub-diameter made for a significant improvement in starting torque, without compromising efficiency.
Read more about this topic: Tesla Turbine
Famous quotes containing the word pump:
“God primes the pump of obligation.”
—A.P. Martinich (b. 1946)
“Vivacity, leadership, must be had, and we are not allowed to be nice in choosing. We must fetch the pump with dirty water, if clean cannot be had.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The daughters of delight now pump iron.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)