Fuel Rod Assembly Cycle reactors (FRAC)

  • After relentless weeks of trying to create a Mark-I, efficient, high-energy-output reactor (to no avail, of course), I have given up on trying to get a lot of EU from a closed-core reactor that has no outside connections to anything but the E-net and maybe a lever to turn it on/off. Instead of wasting time, I will take a different approach...


    The idea is, to create a powerplant that can produce a lot of EUs, by cramming a reactor full of Fuel Rod Assemblies (quad Uranium-cells) until it gets too hot, then replacing the FRAs with powerful heat vents and cramming the FRAs into an identical reactor, until it overheats - where the cycle starts over, and the FRAs/heat vents swap places.


    But, due to the large amount of heat created, this will probably require three or four reactors, and only one running at a time while the other two (or three) cool down. I already have some ''schematics'' of a basic idea for the reactors and cooling them.
    Here's the one with the FRAs inside:
    link
    And then the one with the heat vents:
    link


    However, these do use GregTech items. If you don't use GregTech, fear not, you can just use some containment platings (or other platings/items) to take the space of the Iridium Neutron-reflectors, although that slightly decreases the EU output. Also you are free to make any designs for the reactors that you like.


    Only problem with this is, we have yet to find a working way to automate this.
    -Gregtech machines might accidentally remove the heat vents that are put into a reactor, thinking that the vent should be put into the next reactor prematurely, thus you get melted heat vents and a really, really big crater where your powerplant was.
    -LogisticsPipes don't know when to operate and when to not, so that's out aswell
    -Etc.


    Not to mention the fact that this will ALSO use up a massive amount of resources, being another problem, so don't imagine building one of these unless you are firmly established in your world/server and have the resources to start with.


    This idea is not yet ''working'', so if you have an idea on how to properly automate a powerplant like this, please post your ideas.
    (but, do note that I and many others do not use really old and outdated/redundant mods like RedPower, so if a mod has something that works for this, but it has not been updated in a very long time, it may not be helpful to the majority of us)
    Thank you for reading this post, feel free to reply about your thoughts and ideas.

  • This is certainly an interesting idea, However, I don't think this will ever manage to be more efficient than DDoS of HVC reactors, as they require less movement, and use more efficient cooling configurations. this might work, though if the hull is used as a heat sink, though cooling that would require a very complex setup that would be difficult to automate.

  • This is certainly an interesting idea, However, I don't think this will ever manage to be more efficient than DDoS of HVC reactors, as they require less movement, and use more efficient cooling configurations. this might work, though if the hull is used as a heat sink, though cooling that would require a very complex setup that would be difficult to automate.

    However - with my experiments, I have found that it is impossible to remove the coolant cells from a DDoS reactor at the exact time required, even with GregTech machines. I think that it's also the same for HVC reactors, as it works basically the same way with translocators. Thus, I reason that, since fuel rods don't skip reactor pulses, it may be possible to remove the fuel rods without error. However - this still may not work, depending on how fast GregTech machines can think...

  • DDoS reactors work fine if you shut them down for a few seconds to pull the cells. as long as the microcycle time is a decent length, you will not loose that much eu/t, especially compared to ferrying around the uranium rods.