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Post by leerooooooy on Nov 3, 2016 18:10:14 GMT
I thought I'd take on the opposite paradigm and make an extremely cold reactor. I also wanted to run it on depleted uranium just 'cause that's the sort of thing people tend to think of as not viable for use, but it might be a waste of mass anyway. I'm not sure the savings of hot reactors on radiator mass are really all that great when you can use very light polyethylene and lithium below 400K outlet temp (these are good neutron reflectors too, so could they reflect nuclear blast energy and take less damage than their listed properties would suggest?). You have to shape them so they stick out really far to minimise how much space they take on the ship's surface and maximise their own surface area, but this isn't a problem — in fact it's good since it doesn't increase cross-section anyway and means when the enemy targets your radiators they aim further away from the hull. Obviously though once you run into the hundred-megawatt & gigawatt power levels there may cease to be any reasonable thermal radiation solution. With that in mind, I think ships with optimised power draw instead of optimised power generation may be a very viable design philosophy — one I will explore at least. The negative coolant temperature appears not to be a bug, by the way: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature the negative temps are a bug in this case, game is not simulating the quantum shenanigans that could lead to those and even then they would not make sense there. qswitched mind checking this one? |
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Post by someusername6 on Nov 3, 2016 18:13:44 GMT
Here's one at 581c. Initially meant to run a bit hotter, and a bit under 100 kW. What are people's experiences with coolants in this range?  |
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Post by leerooooooy on Nov 3, 2016 18:55:37 GMT
Here's one at 581c. Initially meant to run a bit hotter, and a bit under 100 kW. What are people's experiences with coolants in this range? a minuscule improvement  |
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Post by goduranus on Nov 3, 2016 19:33:18 GMT
I use sodium for big reactors, since it carries away more heat for a given size of pumps. For smaller reactors I use ethane, since the sizes of pumps are generally not an issue there.
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Post by qswitched on Nov 3, 2016 21:32:45 GMT
I thought I'd take on the opposite paradigm and make an extremely cold reactor. I also wanted to run it on depleted uranium just 'cause that's the sort of thing people tend to think of as not viable for use, but it might be a waste of mass anyway. I'm not sure the savings of hot reactors on radiator mass are really all that great when you can use very light polyethylene and lithium below 400K outlet temp (these are good neutron reflectors too, so could they reflect nuclear blast energy and take less damage than their listed properties would suggest?). You have to shape them so they stick out really far to minimise how much space they take on the ship's surface and maximise their own surface area, but this isn't a problem — in fact it's good since it doesn't increase cross-section anyway and means when the enemy targets your radiators they aim further away from the hull. Obviously though once you run into the hundred-megawatt & gigawatt power levels there may cease to be any reasonable thermal radiation solution. With that in mind, I think ships with optimised power draw instead of optimised power generation may be a very viable design philosophy — one I will explore at least. The negative coolant temperature appears not to be a bug, by the way: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperaturethe negative temps are a bug in this case, game is not simulating the quantum shenanigans that could lead to those and even then they would not make sense there. qswitched mind checking this one? Yeah, you shouldn't be getting negative temperatures in nuclear reactors, you would only ever see that kind of thing in lasers and quantum devices. This is a bug. |
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reviire
New Member
I'm pretty great
Posts: 44 
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Post by reviire on Nov 3, 2016 23:47:24 GMT
My first attempt at a nuclear reactor, do you think this is any good? Some of the reactors other people have been talking about sound amazing. So, I'm going to attempt to make one until I eventually succeed. EDIT: It seems pretty terrible, comparing it to a stock reactor. The primary problem is that your secondary cooling loop is really anemic, and you are making up the difference by using a gigantic thermocouple. This is a problem because Tantalum and Tungsten are really expensive compared to the cost of a better cooling loop. Keeping the actual reactor core the same, I'd cut the thermocouple down to r:2.5 h:5.6, then fix up the heat problems by switching outer coolant to sodium and tweaking the outer pump until the core won't melt. Alright, thanks. The main problem I've been having with Nuclear reactors/engines, is that I don't know why certain materials affect things in certain ways. I've been able to pick things up better with lasers and the other weapons, though. I'll post results if I get something resembling a decent reactor. puu.sh/s5Fys.jpg I'd say this is decent. EDIT: Well, it also crashes the game whenever I try to load it into the sandbox. EDIT 2: The game stopped crashing as soon as I increased the reflector thickness. I had it at 0. |
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Post by tophattingson on Nov 11, 2016 23:55:20 GMT
Decided to make the lowest-mass 1MW reactor I could.  |
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Post by tophattingson on Nov 12, 2016 0:13:25 GMT
Time to go even lighter.  |
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Post by amimai on Nov 12, 2016 0:52:56 GMT
Go big or go home...  |
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Post by someusername6 on Nov 12, 2016 0:54:06 GMT
tophattingson: Can you post the module details, instead of just the summary screen?
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Post by tophattingson on Nov 12, 2016 1:41:47 GMT
tophattingson: Can you post the module details, instead of just the summary screen? I think I want to keep this module to myself for now. Especially with how much time I had to spend fine tuning values down to individual grams. Consider it a challenge to try to replicate it. Edit: Another 300g and 200c shaved off.  Edit 2: Now comes in two versions, and another 100g 20c reduction.  |
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Post by amimai on Nov 12, 2016 3:22:16 GMT
tophattingson: Can you post the module details, instead of just the summary screen? I think I want to keep this module to myself for now. Especially with how much time I had to spend fine tuning values down to individual grams. Consider it a challenge to try to replicate it. Edit: Another 300g and 200c shaved off. Edit 2: Now comes in two versions, and another 100g 20c reduction. *cough* your radiators weigh 500kg *cough* sorry I got something in my throat... I think it was the outlet temperature that did it  I can shave at least 250kg with one simple change did you know a 25% change in outlet temperature results in a 100% change in required radiator mass? said 25% change in outlet temperature translate in only a 2.5% change in reactor efficiency... also that is by no means radiation safe, you cant put that on a manned ship |
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Post by someusername6 on Nov 12, 2016 3:38:55 GMT
Here's a reactor I use for drones that don't need a lot of power. Relatively cheap, light, and hot.  |
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Post by tophattingson on Nov 12, 2016 4:16:08 GMT
*cough* your radiators weigh 500kg *cough* sorry I got something in my throat... I think it was the outlet temperature that did it I can shave at least 250kg with one simple change did you know a 25% change in outlet temperature results in a 100% change in required radiator mass? said 25% change in outlet temperature translate in only a 2.5% change in reactor efficiency... also that is by no means radiation safe, you cant put that on a manned ship I am well aware that radiator heat dissipation scales approximately with T^4. Already planning on making a 2700K outlet variant. There are bigger costs to doing this than just the change in reactor efficiency. Once you start reaching such high outlet temperatures, the available temperature gradient decreases because the inner loop is limited by the melting point of the fuel rods. It's deliberately not radiation safe because all the good radiation shielding materials will melt if applied directly to the reactor. Specifically, it should be used with a separate Lithium-6 radiation shield. |
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Post by tophattingson on Nov 12, 2016 20:58:25 GMT
Here's the 2700k version. It requires 64% the radiator surface area of the 2000k version.  Using minimum armour amorphous carbon radiators, the total mass of the system is: 28.7kg for 2000K 63.15kg for 2700K Your hypothesis fails unless you armour your radiators. |
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I can shave at least 250kg with one simple change