Accurate Modeling of the Flow Structures in the Gap Between Corotating Disks of a Tesla Turbine

Momentum diffusion and kinetic energy transfer in turbomachinery have always been significant issues. These phenomena have a considerable effect on the performance of the bladeless Tesla turbine. Analyzing the flow inside the gap between the co-rotating disks of the Tesla turbine poses a challenge due to numerous factors, including sub-millimeter length scale, variation of flow cross-section, interactions of body forces arising from the rotation with the turbulence, interactions between the turbine’s inlet nozzles and rotor, and moving walls. Due to the mentioned reasons, the majority of the numerical research devoted to this problem diverges from the experimental data due to the limited accuracy of the implemented models. This research aims to study the flow in the domain that consists of one inlet nozzle and a part of one gap between the disks to reveal the complexity of the flow structures and their impact on the Tesla turbine performance. Large Eddy Simulation (LES) with the Smagorinsky subgrid scale model and k-ω SST turbulence model were employed to simulate the flow. The research compares the flow structure, flow parameters, and its impact on the performance of the system. The mesh strategy is also described since the LES requirements make this simulation computationally expensive and time-consuming. The overall benefit of this method is discussed.