What classification would you say this is (and how could it be improved)

J_mie6 · Apr 29th 2012

Hi, I just made my own reactor which I think is not that bad (though was shocked when I heard an explosion and realised the output was bigger than I thought and blew up my storage)

output is around 1100EU/t

surrounded by water except for 3 blocks

setup:

:Intergrated Heat Dispenser: :Coolant Cell: :Uranium Cell: :Uranium Cell:

The idea was tile adjecent to 1 uranium had coolant and one adjecent to 2 uranium was a plate, if not adjecent to uranium make it a heat dispenser.

Thanks,

Jamie

edit: yeah added an extra row, above is the real one

jppk1 · Apr 29th 2012

And how are you going to fit that into a single nuclear reactor with 6 chambers? It's 6x9 and your design is 10x6.
With that many uranium cells adjacent to each other that's a mark V(aka blows up in under fifteen minutes if you don't feed it with coolants).
If you want a design that doesn't use coolants all the time try using less uranium cells
Edit: did you mean this(link to reactor planner, you can use it to test your own designs)

J_mie6 · Apr 29th 2012

Whoops the added another middle.

if I replace the outer nuclear cells with coolant and heat dispersers would it be better?

jppk1 · Apr 29th 2012

This is a bit long, but if you read and understand most of it you basically know how IC2 nuclear reactors work.

You want to have as many coolant cells as possible right next to as few integrated heat dispensers(I will be referring to these as IHD) as possible(not diagonally,they don't count). Uranium cells produce less heat if they have coolant cells/IHDs/integrated reactor plantings next to them. Each uranium cell produces 10EU/t by default if not adjacent to any other uranium cells. On the other hand, uranium cell which has other uranium cells next to it (again, not diagonally) "ticks" another time(for example, if an uranium cell has three other uranium cells next to it, it produces 300% more power(40EU/t) and 300% more heat). You don't really want to use integrated reactor platings in reactor designed for power production, as they don't cool the reactor. Coolant cells provide 1 cooling/reactor tick/each coolant cell. IHDs try to balance the heat produced by the uranium between the adjacent coolant cells(limit is six heat per component per reactor tick) and draw heat from the reactor and spread it to the coolant cells(same limit as before). So, you want to have a one, two or three uranium cells next to each other to decrease the uranium usage but still keep the power output high, and use as few as possible IHDs with as many coolant cells as possible for the best reactor design(there isn't a single "best" one).

If you want to have a reactor design like yours, which requires a cooldown every now and then but has burst potential, I suggest this(it needs to be turned off for 2/3 of the time, but it can also be ran for an hour before it explodes, I suggest running it in sprints of 30 minutes so that the water source blocks don't vaporize(read below)). If you just want a reactor you can run pretty much 100% of the time without wasting tons of uranium, this is a very good one(made by Cake).

Reactors can be shut down with redstone signals without taking the uranium cells out of it. At 40% of maximium heat, reactor set nearby flammable blocks on fire. At 50% maximum heat, reactors vaporize nearby water source blocks(place the water source blocks which you use to cool the reactor at least 6 blocks away from the reactor). At 70% heat, you start taking damage if you're near the reactor. At 85% heat the reactor starts to transform any nearby blocks into flowing lava blocks(they won't stay for long)NOTE: you don't want this to happen. It can destroy the redstone wiring which you use to shut down your reactor. And at 100% heat, KABOOM, the reactor blows up and leaves quite a sizable hole where it used to be).

Additionally, you can use water buckets and ice blocks to cool the reactor with 250 and 300 heat. This can be great even without automation as you can throw a couple of full water buckets in the reactor, take them when the water in them vaporizes, fill them again and put them back in the reactor. This technique greatly increases the average output of the reactor.
The reactor planner is a great tool, as you can try out your own designs without having to blow up your reactors. Link to the reactor planner .
For reactor cooldown circuitry, I suggest using a mod called Redpower 2. You can search the forum for some easy on/off setups.

gorzak · May 2nd 2012

It's a mark V, as the simulator states. I like that it doesn't use SUC, I tend to prefer that. That said, there is significant room for improvement. The design is pretty, but the function is only so so. 20 uranium but only 2.7 efficiency. ~50eu effective output (because it has to be off 9 seconds out of 10). Only 14 coolant cells.

Heres a similar config with more cooling cells. http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…xzivqnxjronp3n2y4oq2ydsg0 Slightly more uranium, so much more heat, despite that has slightly better efficiency and slightly better effective eu/t thanks to 20 cooling cells. Really, there is so much molten uranium in there though that it's gotta be off a lot.

2.7 efficiency (like yours) 7 uranium. http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.b…j5uld77oso84pz282vyg8i1oh

A key thing to notice about your config is that a complete cycle takes 30 + hours. The setup above can be run almost 5 times in that same span. It would use the same amount of uranium (21) in slightly more than 18+ hours.

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