Subject: Steam Power



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(3571)   Sun 28 Jul 91 10:50                             
By: Don Kulha
To: Michael Favor

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>  
> The Tesla Bladeless Turbine sounds like just what I've been 
> looking for!  If it is that easy to build, it couldnt be too 
> expensive.  I am extremely interested in any further info 
> you could possibly post here, or mail to me (pobox 4096 
> chico, ca 95927) or fax to me (916- 891-0502) or anything 
> else you could think of.  I would gladly pay postage/phone 
> charges or whatever.
>  
    The turbine might be what you're looking for after all. First 
off I'm going to build a small working model to initally be powered 
by compressed air for testing purposes. I'll post info on it here 
in a month or so after we do the engineering study (don't want to 
blow this thing up by over-reving it...aluminum rotors may not 
work). We're going to analyze it's efficency pretty carefully and 
luckily I have some high powered engineers interested in this who 
will be modeling this for me. I don't know that condensate will be 
a problem beyond normal oxidation...they use these things as pumps 
commercially. My most likely problem will be keeping the rotor 
disks together at 30k/rpm and keeping bearings in it. I may need to 
make some hardened stainless steel disks and get special bearings 
and lubricants. Will keep you posted...

> to create a focusing reflector by stretching mylar into the 
> propper shape using a small vacuum pump.  A group of these 
> collectors on on a framework not much larger than than 
> average satalite tv dish (ie: backyard sized) could easily 
> produce enough steam to drive a 10Kw generator, which is 
> more than enough for the average household, with 
> air-conditioner running.  In the area where I live the 
> utilility company (PGE) is required by law to purchase any 
> extra electricity (up to 100Kw) at about $.04/Kwh, so a 
> solar generator of this type might even find use in areas 
> readily accessable to utility power, purely on economic 
> grounds, considering the size of our monthly household power 
> bill as an example case.  Wouldn't it be nice to turn that 
> bill into a check?
>  
   Yes, it's truely amazing how much energy actually falls on the 
surface of the earth courtesy of the sun. My project has two power 
sources in mind...wood and solar (I want something besides solar 
for when the sun doesn't shine as backup). I think that steam 
generation is going to be a lot stickier for me than building the 
turbine but then it's a well known technology which just requires a 
bit of reserch on my part. I'm with you though...it would be 
beautiful to generate electricity using sunlight, water and some 
mechanical bits. I have a pile or aluminum sheets that got a 
special thin film coating to make them 99% reflective in the visual 
wavelegnth EM range which I plan to play with in addition to trying 
freznel lens as a concentrator.
    A few years back I was experimenting with a solar air heater 
which I used some of these in. To keep this short I screwed up and 
used wood as the back and part of the framing. Some of these panels 
were added as "wings" to concentrate a bit more energy on the 
collector itself. I finished it late one eve and went to bed. The 
next morning I found the prototype collector where I'd left it on 
the lawn with smoke pouring out of the exhaust ports! I judged my 
solar collection experiment a sucess but never had a way to apply 
it to the rented house I lived in. Then I built a curved wood 
framework, put some of these thin aluminum reflectors on it and 
placed a 15 gallon drum (painted with a selective black coating) in 
front of it. Got the water up to a simmer in spite of the very 
crude hack that it was. Yep, there's definitly enough energy 
incoming to make some steam!

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