Neither the picture, the diagrams or the explanation provide meaningful description of how this works. None demonstrate airflow transference to torque or even direction of flow. Can anyone explain this better?
There are parallel disks on a shaft that are spaced a small distance apart. Air is forced into the outer edge of the disks and makes its way out of the center where there are holes to allow the air to escape.
The basic principle is that it uses the boundary layer(friction) to rotate the disks. A typical turbine redirects air to generate torque while this turbine just uses the drag on the disks to generate torque.
There is tons of info about this on the web. Its a favorite project of Tesla junkies.