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Post by matterbeam on May 4, 2017 14:52:03 GMT
The laser operates between 351 K and 656 K, so radiator area would be huge. The temperature is so low that it probably wouldn't be offset by the lack of external power required. Essentially, you wouldn't need a powerful reactor, but your total radiator surface would probably be larger. A more conventional setup seems better, that way you can also use the nucleair power to drive a MPDT for cruising, save on radiator surface and your laser can at worst melt, instead of melting down. The best nucleair pumped lasers in this paper appear to use UF 6-gas, which is lower density meaning your volume is large. Then again, if someone mods it in (or if it gets added to the game), I'd be all too happy to test it out. Well, instead of powering the laser directly, with 5% efficiency, you can run much more efficient heat pumps to increase the temperature gradient. For example, a 100MW electric laser in-game requires about 2000MW of electric input. A 100MW nuclear laser can use instead pump 100MW of waste heat to 2000K using 233 (100% eff) to 466MW (50% eff) heat pump power.
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Post by bigbombr on May 4, 2017 14:54:01 GMT
The laser operates between 351 K and 656 K, so radiator area would be huge. The temperature is so low that it probably wouldn't be offset by the lack of external power required. Essentially, you wouldn't need a powerful reactor, but your total radiator surface would probably be larger. A more conventional setup seems better, that way you can also use the nucleair power to drive a MPDT for cruising, save on radiator surface and your laser can at worst melt, instead of melting down. The best nucleair pumped lasers in this paper appear to use UF 6-gas, which is lower density meaning your volume is large. Then again, if someone mods it in (or if it gets added to the game), I'd be all too happy to test it out. Well, instead of powering the laser directly, with 5% efficiency, you can run much more efficient heat pumps to increase the temperature gradient. For example, a 100MW electric laser in-game requires about 2000MW of electric input. A 100MW nuclear laser can use instead pump 100MW of waste heat to 2000K using 233 (100% eff) to 466MW (50% eff) heat pump power. Time to dust off the suggestion thread for heat pumps ...
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