RTC2014 Building plans

Four teams attended the Rotterdam Turbine Challenge in 2014. Team Black Turbine won the challenge because their turbine offered the most power under given circumstances. Team Omega delivered the most flexible design for further research with a 3d-printable nozzle.

All four designs are added to the collection of open design building plans and will be used for the next generation of Tesla turbines.

First was team Black Turbine:

pdf:  RTC2014-black_turbine.pdf
step: RTC2014-black_turbine.STEP

Team Omega, also named in an earlyer blog:

pdf:  RTC2014-Omega.pdf
step: RTC2014-Omega.stp

Two other teams also provided very well working Tesla Turbines. These turbines gave less power given the circumstances. With other circumstances this could be different. In example, the turbine of Tesla team 1 has larger blades so it can maybe provide more torque, though we didn't test this.
Team 1 was sponsored by Nootenboom Machine factory.

From left to right: Valentijn Nootenboom, Frans Langerak, Adriaan Mans, Mark van Winkelen, Joost van Keulen.

pdf:  RTC2014-TeslaTeam1.pdf
step: RTC2014-TeslaTeam1.stp



The Tesla bazen team had some bad luck during the match. The turbine worked pretty well during earlyer tests and was sponsored by IHC-Merwede and Biezepol.

 

 

From left to right: Christiaan van 't Oor, Anthar van Geel, Ronald Leemborg, Stefan Knoester, Wesley Pont. 

pdf:  RTC2014-Tesla_bazen.pdf
step: RTC2014-Tesla_bazen.stp

RTC2014 won by team Black Turbine

The Rotterdam Turbine Challenge 2014 is won by team Black Turbine. After the turbine had spinned up to a speed of about 20000 rpm the break load was applied. At that speed the turbine still delivered a high enough torque to make the break smoke and melt. This way we could not make a good measurement but it was clear the team had build the fastest turbine with the given load.

The students received the trophy from the hands of Gerard Beukema, founder of Technetkring and board member of Royal Dahlman.

More information about the turbine will be released next week with more information about the other three turbines that applied to the match.

Rotterdam Turbine Challenge 2014

With enough teams for a match it is time to organize the first Rotterdam Turbine Challenge at the RDM Campus in Rotterdam. On July 10 at 13:00 pm we will start the challenge at the RDM innovation dock. The results of the match will be judged by Eefje Post of Greenturbine.

Team Black Turbine

Another team of turbine builders was busy in the shop today with testing their turbine design. This time team Black Turbine (Ronald Kok, Christaan Leendertse, Bart Maree, Sander in 't Veld & Rens Hermus) We are testing the turbines with an easy design brake for this first match. A known torque, applied at the turbine shaft with a measured rotational frequency gives the delivered shaft power.

During the test the turbine seemed to deliver more power as the break could handle. The belt, used for the break started melting and burning. For the test team its time to look at other belt materials for testing.

The "Black Turbine" come with a set of steel, replaceable nozzles which can be mounted at the air pressure inlet.

Team Omega

With four teams of each five students improving the turbine designs it seems to be time to organize a match. All four teams have working turbines which all should be an improvement of the first two designs. Last Friday I met one of the teams at the Academieplein location of the Rotterdam university of Applied Science.

Team Omega (Ruben Willemen, Therry Baas, Ricardo Mertens & Lodewijk Voorhoeve) found enough sponsors to provide them the parts for their designed turbine. One of the nice advantages is the nozzle, which is a 3D-printed part. This makes cheap experiments with the nozzle possible.

The testrun they performed showed pretty good results already. A youtube video is available already:

Building plans

The stepfile of the second Tesla Turbine was released on the 26th of February. We decided also to release the blueprints as pdf files. This article is a summary of the released files.

 

First there are the plans of the Zefiros 1:

 

pdf: 2013-Drawings_Zefiros.pdf

step: 2013-Drawings_Zefiros.STEP

 

The plans for the second Tesla Turbine, build and tested in February can be found here:

 

pdf: 2014-Drawings_Tesla2.pdf

step: 2014-Drawings_Tesla2.STEP

 

 

 

 

 

Improving designs

The place we had at the RDM Campus in Rotterdam was pretty crowded with students who are attending the new turbine projects together with Greenturbine, Royal Dahlman and MTI Holland. 

Safety is an important issue for the designs. Ed Wensveen of Lloyds Register provided a lecture about safety in equipment, working under pressure.

New prototype

On 3 February 2014 the second group of students of the institute for Engineering and Applied Science presented a second prototype of the Tesla Turbine. The design is based on the original design of Nicola Tesla. The students involved are (from left): Bob Woudenberg, Glenn Versendaal, Geert van Pelt and Timothy Berkouwer.

 

Parts and material were supplied by Econosto and Ville Apparatenbouw.



 

 

 

The OpenDesign model can be downloaded as a stepfile here.