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Post by Kerr on Jan 19, 2018 16:12:23 GMT
"Space" has a temperature! Well not vacuum directly but the background radiation keeps everything at warm and cozy 2.73K. I believe that's the cosmic background radiation, not the space itself. Read my comment again
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Post by gfarrell80 on Feb 27, 2018 1:32:47 GMT
The ambient temperature of of armor depends on a lot more factors than just distance from the sun. It's whatever temperature the incoming and outgoing energies balance out at. Most of the energy will probably come from the sun, but even that is not that simple. Surface reflectance and interreflection can have an effect on incoming irradiance as well (think parabolic mirrors for an extreme case.) Heat conduction can go both ways: if the armor is heated by the sun, it may conduct heat towards the inner hull, where it will eventually go out through some radiator. Alternatively, if the armor is cold, some energy is bound to find its way to the armor through structural supports. Finally, the armor radiates heat away just like a radiator would, if perhaps a little less efficiently since its materials are not optimized for the purpose. The armor also won't stay at a uniform temperature, but will have heat gradients based on local changes in incoming and outgoing heat. The armor will settle at whatever temperature all these factors balance out. Incoming heat will be roughly constant, whereas energy loss through heat conduction will scale with the local temperature gradient, and heat radiation to the fourth power of temperature. All of this is so complicated to simulate properly that you would have to either limit ship count to just a few ships, or use gross estimation to make the ordeal pretty much pointless in the first place. And either way, armor ambient temperature is quite an insignificant factor, even with lasing damage. If I had to guess, the game just sets the ambient temperature to some low constant and settles at that. Fantastic explanation. Only thing I would add is different materials do have different emmisivity/radiating of heat properties, so your ship clad in aluminum will shed heat better than a ship clad in aerogel. Also I am not sure if armor temperature it is entirely insignificant, based on distance from the sun. Radiator performance would also be impacted I would think if you are near Mercury, Earth, Mars, or Neptune.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Feb 27, 2018 21:42:18 GMT
I think a tin-whippled ship around Mercury could turn out to be quite amusing.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Feb 28, 2018 17:28:07 GMT
FOnly thing I would add is different materials do have different emmisivity/radiating of heat properties, so your ship clad in aluminum will shed heat better than a ship clad in aerogel. Actually, I'm not sure that would be the case - silica aerogel is still much better heat conductor than the vacuum surrounding it. It will make difference in short term, non-equilibrium conditions (like the outside of your ship getting flashed by nukes or lasers, or having to dissipate sudden heat flux originating inside for whatever reason), but in long term scenario we can assume that the armour is in equilibrium with the rest of the ship and is radiating the heat as fast as it conducts it (which will always be faster than whatever is inside could accomplish via radiation alone). Surface finish, however will definitely play a role and any sort of polished metal will have low emissivity compared to a dark, matted surface.
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Post by darthroach on Mar 6, 2018 11:53:09 GMT
Space does not have temperature, because there is nothing to have temperature. But your armor does. It depends on the incoming energy. Isn't temperature relative to distance from the sun (or other generic heating celestial body), based solely on solar radiation though? Like, Mercury is a few hundred degrees, while, say Pluto is in the lower range of negatives? We'll ignore the fact that these bodies may or may not have an atmosphere. Temperature of what? The surface of these planets? Because vacuum doesn't have temperature. Temperature is the measure of the average kinetic energy of particles in a system, it doesn't make sense to speak of temperature without any matter. There is no air to have ambient temperature, to convect or conduct heat away from objects. Some patch of surface exposed to sunlight might be hundreds of degrees hotter than some patch of surface in the shade. How much something heats up in the sunlight can depend on how reflective it is, how well it conducts heat, etc. There is no "temperature" to space in Pluto's orbit, there is only the hypothetical question of what temperature your ship's armor will reach if it sits there long enough.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Mar 6, 2018 18:00:34 GMT
Well, "blackbody equilibrium temperature" is kind of mouthful.
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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Mar 6, 2018 20:11:46 GMT
I recently confirmed that initial temperature is 0 K. There doesn't seem to be any modeling for ambient heat whatsoever.
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