Page:Canadian patent 135174.djvu/2

 Aug. 22, 1911

SPECIFICATION. ––––––––––––

TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

Be it known that I NIKOLA TESLA an engineer residing at The Waldorf Astoria, corner Fifth Avenue and Thirty Fourth Street, in the Borough of Manhattan, City and State of New York, United States of America, having invented certain new and useful improvements in FLUID PROPULSION, do hereby declare the following is a full, clear and exact description of the same.

In the practical application of mechanical power based on the use of a fluid as vehicle of energy it has been demonstrated that, in order to attain the highest economy, the changes in velocity and direction of movement of the fluid should be as gradual as possible. In the present forms of such apparatus more or less sudden changes, shocks and vibrations, are unavoidable. Besides the employment of the usual devices for imparting to, or deriving energy from a fluid, as pistons, paddles, vanes and blades, necessarily introduces numerous defects and limitations and adds to the complication, cost of production and maintenance of the machine.

The object of my invention is to overcome these deficiencies and to effect the transmission and transformation of mechanical energy through the agency of fluids in a more perfect manner, and by means simpler and more economical than those heretofore employed.

I accomplish this by causing the propelled or propelling fluid to move in natural paths or stream lines of least resistance, free from constraint and disturbance such as occasioned by vanes or kindred devices, and to change its velocity and direction of movement by imperceptible degrees, thus avoiding the losses due to sudden variations while the fluid is receiving or imparting energy.

It is well known that a fluid possesses, among others, two salient properties; adhesion and viscosity.