The new 5x5 IC² Reactor

  • I played a bit with the new Reactor Pressure Vessel multiblock. Why use it? This multiblock gets you two times the energy after conversion from heat to EU than most equivalent direct EU setups.


    Picture: The new 5x5 IC² Reactor


    Building the 5x5 reactor vessel (Reactor Pressure Vessel Blocks, Access Hatch, Redstone Port and some Fluid Ports) around a full 6-chamber reactor gives you a new GUI and enables the new cooling mechanics without reconfiguring. The GUI is mostly familiar, but has slots to insert and take up coolant with cells (preferably Universal Fluid cells). It has a new graphic for heat, which appears as blue horizontal lines growing red from right to left.


    The whole power-train goes: Fluid Port > Liquid Heat Exchanger > Steam Generator > Turbine > Kinetic Generator > EU cable or storage. This should produce 1.28 EU per 2 hU, but in practice, I'm only seeing about 1.15 average.
    Alternatively, you could go: Fluid Port > LHE > Stirling Generator > EU cable or storage. This produces 1 EU per 2hU. This setup is simpler and still produces significantly more EU than a reactor without the multiblock.


    When placing internal components and external Liquid Heat Exchangers, you must consider the following:

    • Venting components are the key to transforming Core temp into hU/t. If you don't have enough venting components, the hU/t will not be high enough to keep the core temp neutral.
    • If the hU/t is too low, all the vents in the world won't matter: Core temp will increase because it has nowhere to go
    • If your hot/cold coolant gets clogged or bottle-necked somewhere, the hU/t will drop
    • You can use liquid ejector modules in both the Fluid port and the Liquid Exchanger to use one Fluid Port for both extraction of hot coolant and deposit of cooled fluid
    • Critical: If your steam generator fully calcifies, or your turbine breaks while you are relying on a closed steam/distilledwater cycle, your reactor will overheat


    You can now use multiple heaters to power a steam generator, but be wary of overheating the steam generator: It explodes around 500C.


    Once you get steam from the steam gen, you run it through a Turbine and Kinetic Generator to produce EU. The Steam Generator will calcify over time (the block disappears at 100%), but Condensers and Turbines produce distilled water, which can then be used in a closed cycle to eliminate calcification.


    Building this multiblock has an additional benefit: If you accidentally leave it and it overheats, if the Redstone Port is not directly adjacent to the reactor inside, as soon as one of the Pressure Vessel Blocks turns to lava, the multi-block will break, and signal will no longer keep the reactor on, essentially making it explosion-resistant for mostly-stable setups.


    While there are currently no basic pipes in IC² (the fluid regulators could be chained to make expensive EU-powered pipes), you don't need any other mods than IC² to make all this run. A mod that adds pipes can give you additional flexibility (BC pipes work, but can't handle the steam output). I suspect the Reactor Hatch can be used for inventory automation, and you can use multiple hatches. I have not checked for compatibility of IC² steam with Railcraft/GT steam.


    Data:
    *** LHE now goes to 200/200, so LHE might be 1:1, contrary to this data*** A Liquid Heat Exchanger processes 2 times the hU/t that it seems to indicate it does (A 100/100 Liquid Heat Exchanger can keep a 200hU/t reactor cool, 2 100/100 LHE's can keep a 400hU/t cool).
    The minimum amount of liquid in a Steam Generator required to produce steam that flows into a turbine: 11mb (this allows distilled water to return to the steam gen very early, resulting in only .01% calcification).
    A full Steam Gen recieving 200/200 heat and no water input can fully power at least 5 turbines (but there is no way in default IC2 or buildcraft to route that much steam to more turbines, with the 6-sides-per-block limitation).

    • Official Post

    Once you get steam from the steam gen, it looks like you run it through a condenser to get EU. The Steam Generator will calcify over time (appears to be permanent, and you'd have to replace it), but I suspect the Condenser produces distilled water, which can then be used in a closed cycle to reduce or perhaps eliminate calcification.


    Wrong:


    The steam goes into a Steam Turbine (new in 532) which generates rotation energy (RPT). That goes into a Kinetic Generator which makes EU.
    The steam turbine needs a turbine rotor, and produces distilled water too.


    Distilled water indeed doesn't calcify the steam generator when it makes steam, unlike normal water


    I'm pretty sure closed cycles will work, water shouldn't be lost, but I've not run it long enough to confirm this. Calcification is indeed permanent.


    The condenser seems only to make distilled water from the steam (and needs EU to do this), which doesn't seem all that useful, but I expect I'm just missing something, or it is useless.

    There is not currently a way I could identify to use multiple heaters of any kind to power a steam generator.

    There isn't. All heat machines only have 1 face to accept or emit heat.


    This multiblock gets you two times the energy after conversion from heat to EU than an equivalent direct EU setup.

    Only if you have at least 2 uranium rods touching. Otherwise there is actually a loss.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

  • Wrong: The steam goes into a Steam Turbine (new in 532) which generates rotation energy (RPT). That goes into a Kinetic Generator which makes EU. The steam turbine needs a turbine rotor, and produces distilled water too.

    Ahh, I see. I searched for a turbine, but I was running 530 for this test yesterday.

    Only if you have at least 2 uranium rods touching. Otherwise there is actually a loss.

    Good to know.
    Fixing OP.

    • Official Post

    532 has only been out for 2 hours so it's not surprising :)

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

    • Official Post

    Think I've found what the condenser is used for too. There is a warning on the turbine that there is condensation on it, so it is slowing down. I therefore think that the condenser is used to stop that from happening, but I'm not sure how.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

  • This boiler taking so long to heat is quite prohibitive for testing, and makes your first fuel rods useless for any EU gen.


    Edit:


    The condensers can just sit adjacent to the turbine (but not in between any of the stages), which causes the turbine to fill with distilled water when the condenser is in place and powered.<-Nevermind. Looks like distilled water builds up without a condenser anyway. A fluid ejector in the turbine pushes distilled water directly back into the boiler if the boiler does not have regular water in it.


    It seems to be prudent to only put about a half bucket in the boiler so you can get it up to boiling before running through half a reactor cycle.


    Further Edit: Looks like I'm getting more distilled water (growing all the time) than I put regular water into the system in the first place.

  • Because the Steam Generator appears to be incapable of exceeding 100C, it doesn't run continuously. It runs in a burst, then as soon as distilled water returns to it from the turbine, it drops below 100C, then has to heat back up, repeat.


    This behavior may self-mitigate to some degree if the boiler is closer to full of water.


    The whole system is behaving strangely, I'm sure because it's still early in its implementation. It's almost like the steam and rotations are delivered in discrete (but large) packets. This leads to long periods where no steam appears to be moving from the steam gen into the turbine, but the turbine is generating RPT. Also, the KinGen EU production is sometimes proportional to the RPT value, but other times it actively decreases while the RPT is at maximum and holding constant.

    • Official Post

    This behavior may self-mitigate to some degree if the boiler is closer to full of water.

    If it has a full 10000 mb of water in it, and the water is constantly pumped in, it stays at 100 C. It just takes what felt like, but probably was, hours to heat up.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

  • regulators are the key. prime the steam generator with 1-2k water, and set the regulator to inject distilled water when it receives power. probably have to play with the amount injected. (i haven't tested but that is my assumption on how the whole system works.) balancing the water consumption with the temperatures and slowly opening the regulator up as the system allows.

  • Hello! I want to make some experiments on this type reactors, but my reactor "is in EU mode" and does not have bars for liquids!
    Tried to enable experimentalAdvReactorCooling, did not help.
    How can I enable thermal generating?)

    The Mary Sue is not defined by her power, but by her lack of an even more powerful opponent. ©LessWrong

  • StragaSevera: Build the 5x5 shell of Reactor Pressure Vessel blocks with a couple fluid ports, and a redstone port, and a hatch. That gives you the new gui at the hatch.

  • If it has a full 10000 mb of water in it, and the water is constantly pumped in, it stays at 100 C. It just takes what felt like, but probably was, hours to heat up.


    I don't have numbers, but with a 100/100 Liquid Heat Exchanger, it was far longer than half a reactor cycle. Once it reached maximum temperature, though, I was unable to use all the steam it produced (so that 1.5ish hour was not wasted for power production, just extremely delayed).
    So you have a choice: Run 100mb, get less power sooner then allow distilled to take its place and grow over time, or fill it with 10 buckets, then wait 1.5ish hours to get any power at all. I have a simple experiment in mind to test the total amount of power from this.

  • New for build 534: The power fluctuations in the Steam to EU powertrain have been substantially mitigated. With a boiler I'm constantly replenishing from the turbine, I sit continuously between 106 and 122 EU/t.


    Also, the Turbine displays a new measurement: xkU@xRPT. Looks like a Rotarycraft-like torque@rotationspeed to me.

    • Official Post

    kU is the generic Kinetic Unit unit, the kinetic wind generator makes it too. RPT is something like rotations per tick (I think anyway) and only the steam turbine uses it.

    145 Mods isn't too many. 9 types of copper and 8 types of tin aren't too many. 3 types of coffee though?

    I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you read was not what I meant.


    ---- Minecraft Crash Report ----
    // I just don't know what went wrong :(


    I see this too much.

  • Reposting here after mis-posting on the GT thread:
    Mad glitches:


    Note that the reactor is off. Probably because of the heat exchangers, the core temp keeps fluctuating between 9 and 10%, never varying beyond that. The hU/t, though, remains constant at the value displayed, and continues to produce hot coolant. Infinite power at no further resource cost.


    Edit: Perhaps because I fiddled with things (removed some blocks, wrenched some things, etc.) the condition producing 160hU/t has diminished to merely producing 16hU/t. Consider, though, that it remained at 10%ish core temp and emitted 160hU/t for hours, not mere seconds while the reactor dissipated stored heat.
    Further Edit: After more fiddling, I was able to pump the permanent passive gen up to 40hU/t.

  • Updating the OP pretty actively while I'm experimenting. Feel free to chip in if something reads funnily or is outright wrong.

  • Edit: Things have changed since this design. In particular, the mb, hu/t, eu/t numbers.


    This is about the most stable power train I've got. Start with 11mb of water in each of the steam generators. Put fluid ejector modules in everything that can take one. Duplicate half of what you see here per 200hU/t your reactor generates. Your mileage will vary if you're not producing exactly 200/t per powertrain setup.


    The reactor isn't super efficient, but I'm going for reliable multiples of 200hU/t, and that was the first I made.
    This design gets 130 EU/t in an EU only reactor, and about 230 EU/t in the 5x5.