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Post by teeth on Dec 15, 2016 4:57:50 GMT
This is the reactor for my microdrone, been playing around with it a lot since it's most of the cost of the drone. Jasonvances small ethane reactor gave me the idea to use a criticality changing coolant to make the chamber smaller, which shaved 8 grams off of it. Anybody want to give a shot at making it lighter/cheaper? Needs to be at least 12.5 watts or so.  |
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Post by jasonvance on Dec 15, 2016 23:00:00 GMT
This is the reactor for my microdrone, been playing around with it a lot since it's most of the cost of the drone. Jasonvances small ethane reactor gave me the idea to use a criticality changing coolant to make the chamber smaller, which shaved 8 grams off of it. Anybody want to give a shot at making it lighter/cheaper? Needs to be at least 12.5 watts or so. I managed to shave 2 more grams off that by switching the internal coolant loop to hydrogen from methane. A few notes from tinkering, I think the next big leap for weight reduction will either be a lighter thermocoupler composition (though I am not seeing one currently and I tried a lot of combos). Or to reduce the reactor operating temperature to be able to use lithium internal turbo pump. Either of those could bring the mass down considerably, though reducing the internal temp is likely to require the reduction of the outlet to produce power and most likely kill the efficiency gains in increased radiator size. Reactor:  With Lithium Radiator:  |
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Post by jasonvance on Dec 15, 2016 23:36:00 GMT
I realized I had an extra 2 Watts of unused heat space on my minimum size lithium radiator so I upped the fuel enrichment a bit and that shaved a fraction of a gram (enough to round down the final assembly with radiator). So I thought I would post the updated 13.9W version. It did raise the total cost rounding up by 0.1c though from the extra 233-dioxide. Reactor:  With Radiator:  |
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Post by ash19256 on Dec 16, 2016 5:07:20 GMT
I realized I had an extra 2 Watts of unused heat space on my minimum size lithium radiator so I upped the fuel enrichment a bit and that shaved a fraction of a gram (enough to round down the final assembly with radiator). So I thought I would post the updated 13.9W version. It did raise the total cost rounding up by 0.1c though from the extra 233-dioxide. Reactor: With Radiator: Question, what would this even be used for? 13.9 W isn't enough to power any of the guns I know of, much less anything more power intensive. |
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Post by dragonkid11 on Dec 16, 2016 5:38:26 GMT
If you make a really tiny gun, you can totally use 13.9 W for it.
But in my case, not exactly worth it since you can't really reduce the fuel requirement any further.
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Post by jasonvance on Dec 16, 2016 7:34:28 GMT
Question, what would this even be used for? 13.9 W isn't enough to power any of the guns I know of, much less anything more power intensive. The request above was for improvements to a light ~12.5W power supply for a drone. I also just like to see what the extremes are for science and stuff.  Conventional guns can get down to 10W usage so drones wanting to use them will need a mini-power plant. I did make a 250W version that is only 2 grams heavier a few posts back that could run ~25 conventional guns on a drone (more likely just 20 on the nose) Example 10W gun:  |
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Post by jasonvance on Dec 18, 2016 3:33:27 GMT
PSA: replace your tantalum with osmium in all your reactor designs and have instantly cheaper, more efficient reactors.  |
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Post by jasonvance on Dec 18, 2016 21:03:46 GMT
I did a quick check on different outlets to find out about where your reactor should end up if it is optimized for a specific outlet. *These numbers could be slightly off so feel free to correct any errors if you find a higher efficiency value for a specific outlet.*
Efficiency breakdown for Tungsten/Osmium Themocouple:
2000K - 19%
2050K - 18.6%
2100K - 18.3%
2150K - 17.9%
2200K - 17.6%
2250K - 17.3%
2300K - 17%
2350K - 16.7%
2400K - 16.4%
2450K - 16.2%
2500K - 15.9%
2550K - 15.7%
2600K - 15.4%
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 18, 2016 21:29:17 GMT
How do you get 15.9 and 15.7% for 2500/2550? How much do your reactors weigh? In fact, while I primarily work on 2500k+ designs, your 2400 bracket looks a little off too. To achieve 16.4% efficiency for my 25 GW Apophys replacement would force me to add almost 30% to the reactor's mass, which is not at all balanced out by reductions in waste heat (and radiator mass). |
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Post by jasonvance on Dec 18, 2016 22:02:27 GMT
How do you get 15.9 and 15.7% for 2500/2550? How much do your reactors weigh? In fact, while I primarily work on 2500k+ designs, your 2400 bracket looks a little off too. To achieve 16.4% efficiency for my 25 GW Apophys replacement would force me to add almost 30% to the reactor's mass, which is not at all balanced out by reductions in waste heat (and radiator mass). These are the limits of efficiency on the thermocoupler not the optimal outlet to reactor mass ratios. That value doesn't have a specific known value (see/participate in my other thread on watts/gram) As for optimizing reactors of specific output against mass it is possible to get close to these within reasonable mass ratios. There is always going to be loss in mass ratios by increasing the outlet I don't know the exact formula for that. This 30GW reactor that I quickly modified from Apophys's original has a higher watt/gram ratio than the 15.6% reactor linked at 16.4% (It isn't fully optimized for mass reduction yet either as I only gave it a quick sanity check to make sure my numbers weren't as far off as you were suggesting).   |
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 19, 2016 4:30:27 GMT
Hmm. It appears you are correct.  Now introducing the Ultima Type C, coming to a gigantic freighter near you. |
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Post by dragonkid11 on Dec 19, 2016 4:37:16 GMT
The radiation level, my god.
Are you sure people won't get fried just from standing close to it?
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 19, 2016 5:03:40 GMT
The radiation level, my god. Are you sure people won't get fried just from standing close to it? I can minimize the Radiation level by reducing reactor cross section (which will require about 50-100 kg more control rods) but there's no point when Lithium-6 is so good at catching neutrons. |
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Post by someusername6 on Dec 19, 2016 5:04:08 GMT
Maybe you can put it on a drone, park it next to a hostile ship and kill the enemy crew that way.
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Post by cuddlefish on Dec 19, 2016 5:30:11 GMT
The radiation level, my god. Are you sure people won't get fried just from standing close to it? I can minimize the Radiation level by reducing reactor cross section (which will require about 50-100 kg more control rods) but there's no point when Lithium-6 is so good at catching neutrons. I wonder what the service life of a Lithium shield looks like when it's facing up to that much neutron radiation... |
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