Due to the rapid growth in small-scale energy systems, the scientific community has rekindled its interest in developing a more efficient Tesla turbine owing to its simple design, low cost and efficient operation at these scales. This article is a combined effort of numerical and experimental investigation to improve a Tesla turbine’s overall performance using several inlet and outlet configurations. After achieving good accuracy ( \(\approx \) 6% difference between the results) with the experimental result, we continue the numerical investigation for three different circular-to-slit type nozzle configurations at a total pressure and temperature difference of 2 bar and 50 \(^\circ \) C, respectively. Results from the numerical simulation indicate that nozzle 3 delivers the highest peak Mach no and uniformity across the slits. The maximum disparity in peak Mach no across the slits reduced from 12 to 25%. Furthermore, we experimentally investigate the turbine in bi and uni-axial outlet configurations with compressed air at 6 bar for nozzle 1. We observe a maximum RPM of \(\approx \) 11,000 for bi-axial outlet configuration, whereas the RPM crossed for \(\approx \) 13,300 for uni-axial outlet configuration. These observations suggest that we can improve the maximum turbine power output by \(\approx \) 38% for uni-axial outlet configuration. Finally, we measure the electrical power generated by the turbine in a bi-directional outlet configuration by coupling the turbine with a generator. In combination, these observations would help optimize both inlet and outlet configurations suitable for the later versions of the Tesla turbine.
