Friday, February 11, 2011

Tesla Turbine Update

Last week, Eric Schaupp and I travel led down to the cities to use the laser cutter at Century College in White Bear Lake, MN. The purpose of this trip was to design a functional prototype of the Tesla turbine. This week, we have been going to Itasca Community College to machine the shaft for the turbine. Next week, we will be conducting a multitude of experiments on the prototype to determine optimal turbine design. To build the prototype and machine the shaft, CAD drawings were made using Autodesk Inventor. At Century, we initially had problems exporting the drawings to CorelDraw to be printed but thankfully Tierney Putman (the lab technician) was a great help. A total of 72 pieces were cut on the laser cutter. Nick Esler and Tom Happy, the other two group members, have been working hard to determine how to calculate rotational velocity and torque of the turbine. By Monday, we should have a working prototype ready for testing.

Proofed by Eric Schaupp

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