big reactors Trouble with Big Reactors Energy Output

[MisterCrow]

Hi,

 

So I'm toying around with the Big reactors mod. I have managed to get an actively cooled reactor set up and running but it's only generating 1600 RF / tick (max.). I have an identical reactor which is instead passively cooled (using resonant ender as coolant) which is outputting over 6700 RF / tick.

 

I have set the steam flow rate to be the same in the turbine as it is in the actively cooled reactor (i.e. both 253 millibuckets per tick). Rotor efficiency is 100% and the turbine is running at 1800 RPM (i.e. it's "sweet spot"). The turbine is spinning fast and everything looks good. I have plenty of water feeding the actively cooled reactor.

 

So why is my actively cooled reactor producing around 5000 RF / tick less than the passively cooled one? Surely it should be producing a ton more? It's also burning through fuel at four times the rate. Please let me know what I'm doing wrong!

 

One other thing - I cant's see any ME fluid import / export buses in NEI, or anything to do with liquid management at all in AE for that matter. I'm running Tekkit 1.2.8e. Also, when the turbine is spinning, it becomes translucent...is this a bug???

 

 

Cheers

Edited April 29, 2014 by MisterCrow

[Curunir]

You likely made it "too small". This is not primarily a function of housing size, but the material and massiveness of the turbine coil. What did you use?

Note that you can be at 100% efficiency for a given coil setup, but still heavily underuse the actual steam potential of your reactor, which will lead to bad efficiency. You could probably keep those 253mB/t up with a much stricter control rod setting, or less fuel rods altogether.

 

I finished my own turbine setup today, which is about 3-4 times as efficient as my previous passively-cooled reactor. The reactor part has 36 fuel rod blocks (3x3x4 fuel core) and runs at 80% control rod setting, which gives me ~1975mB/t of steam. I use this back-to-back in two identical turbines, which are a little undersized so far (for lack of Cyanite to craft the rest of the parts). They take 800mB/t each with double Enderium block coils and 32 rotor blades, and each one gets me around 8500 RF/t that way. It could be better with a closer match, just running 1600 RPM for now.

I'm not sure yet if I'll downsize the reactor core to come closer to the 1600 mB/t of steam I actually need, or expand the turbines a little. As it stands, this setup takes just over 0.050 mB/t of Yellorium to get a combined 17.000 RF/t. My passive reactor used to get me ~9.900 RF/t for 0.103 mB/t of Yellorium. Half the fuel used, over 70% increased output. Sounds about right.

 

I will add a picture tomorrow, but I shut down my client for today. All numbers are from recent memory, and might contain small errors.

 

P.S.: I think the parts you want were only added in 1.2.9 beta. As for the translucent rotors, happens here as well and looks intentional.

Edited April 29, 2014 by Curunir

[HeatHunter]

this is how I built my turbines:

 

4 blocks high enderium block coil (32 blocks)

80 fans 8 fans per block in height (fans are 2 blocks width)

 

i use tesseracts to get steam in and power out

 

I'm running these turbines at 1770mb/t so the interface looks as follows:

 

btw. the turbine should be the only thing that produces power in this setup, an actively cooled reactor should only produce steam...

 

I don't use an ME-Network to provide steam, as this is too slow (1000mb/t per connection) and tesseracts work perfect...

Tesseracts don't have a transfer limit, I'm transfering 50B/t through a single Tesseract...

 

 

Edit:

actively cooled just means that you pump water in your reactor and get steam out, you should always use a coolant like resonant ender in your reactor...

Edited April 29, 2014 by HeatHunter

[MisterCrow]

Thanks guys, that seems to have increased power and reduced fuel usage significantly. Now getting 8000RF / tick and reduced fuel burnup rate right down to to 0.05 Have added a few more turbine blades and replace the golden coil with three thick ender blocks.

 

It seems you need insane amount of water being pumped into the coolant port on the reactor (I tried ender fluid but it didn't seem to work). I have like 20 aqueous accumulators tesseracting to the coolant port. Seems the more the better. Is there a better way of getting water into the reactor, instead of building millions of aqueous accumulators?

[HeatHunter]

yep, extra utilities brings you the liquid transfer nodes, you can upgrade them to provide a maximum of 8B/t (8000mB/t)

 

here are some screens:

[jakalth]

Or just transfer water back to your reactor, from your turbine.  Using, you guessed it, another set of tesseracts.  The water return ones need to be on a seperate channel from your steam tesseract.  I wonder if a liquid router would work to let you use just one channel without limiting flow rate.  I have my doubts though... :

 

Even transferring the water back, you'll still want to pump some water into your reactor from your accumulators.  Just to make sure it doesn't run out.

Edited April 30, 2014 by jakalth

[Curunir]

I promised a picture of my setup.

 

No steam or water Tesseracts, no fiddling with pipes. Just back-to-back fluid ports on the turbines and the reactor. I can applaud people building more complicated to get awesome-looking steam pipes, but if you want easy, go without any pipes.

[HeatHunter]

@curunir, you could possibly make your design even more efficient by inserting a coolant to your reactor (like resonant ender)

[Curunir]

I am still experimenting to get the final form. Once I won't have to enter it any more, I will fill something in.

Good point though, as it is not immediately obvious that even an actively-cooled reactor profits from additional passive cooling in the core unit.

[jakalth]

7x7x5 design?  probably gelid, but only by a small margin.  If you had more room for coolant, then gelid would give an even bigger boost.  if there is a ratio of close too or more then 2 coolant blocks for every 1 fuel rod, gelid gives a much higher boost then resonant, in small reactors, the 7x7x5 falls into the small category, just barely.  less then 2 coolant per 1 fuel rod and the two coolant types, gelid and resonant, became close enough to the same that it doesn't matter so much using the easier one to work with.

 

In larger reactors, gelid for sure for the max efficiency and output.  Also, steam output and power output act the same when you figure in the coolant inside the reactor.  the setup that produces more direct power, will also produce more steam.

 

One exception to this all.  If you run your reactor HOT, the coolant inside the reactor doesn't seem to matter as much for steam output, only effects efficiency a bit.

Edited May 2, 2014 by jakalth

[Curunir]

It is a 7x5x5, actually. I just made enough room on the sides of the core block, so I could walk in there and set up the fluid ports without applying advanced acrobatics. Otherwise it would be a 5x5x5.

My permanent reactor will be a different setup anyway, for which this was just a proof-of-concept. A 48-block high stalk with probably a single plus-shape core in the middle, and turbines in all four directions, stacked on several levels above each other. I am calling this project The Core. It will stand on bedrock level or slightly above it, using the big quarry pit in the neighbourhood of my base. On the bedrock around the reactor base, I will install a couple of mining lasers to waste all that energy.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Curunir

[jakalth]

I'd place the lasers up from the ground, even as high is half way.  Simply would look cooler having the beams traveling down from the lasers.  Stacking the turbines works just fine as long as the turbines don't actually touch each other.  So 1 block between them.  When it's done, post a few pictures.  It should be a cool looking piece of technological art.

[HeatHunter]

I think the maximum size of a reactor in any direction is 32...

[Curunir]

I didn't assemble it yet, but according to the config page, max height is 48 blocks:

maxReactorHeight - The maximum allowable height for a Multiblock Reactor, in blocks. Defaults to 48.

maxReactorSize - The maximum allowable horizontal size for a Multiblock Reactor, in blocks. Defaults to 32.

 

P.S.: I found that I had only a few hundred Cyanite Ingots, when I needed a few thousand for my plan. This will take a while, but once I get around to it, I will make a thread for it. Enough hijacking on this one. ;-)

Edited May 3, 2014 by Curunir

[HeatHunter]

I think during my tests it refused to construct the reactor when it was bigger than 32 blocks in any direction... better try this in creative bevore building it in survival

[Curunir]

I actually did assemble my 48-block-high stick reactor. It works. Only 5x5 base layout, though.

[HeatHunter]

then i have to retest my max size reactor.

[sedstr]

I worked out pretty soon, that building the turbines straight onto the reactor was the best way. I had a similar setup to Curunir's setup, but I had two turbines on top of each other (with the mandatory gap in between), I would have had them on different sides, but space was an issue. this however turned out well, because I was able to back both turbines onto a single tesseract.

The reactor started out with 3 rods, 6 high, in an 8 x 7 x 5, with the turbines 16 in length, with 3.5 coils.

With this configuration, I was getting over 18k per tic on each turbine.

I recently watched a video where they had turbines built in a 7 x 7 x 16 configuration, that allowed them to put in more blades and get ~24k per tick.

Although this configuration yields more per tick, it requires many more pieces to build.

Reading a bit more, if you orientate the turbines vertically, you can go as far as 32 rather than 16 in the horizontal position.

2000 mb / 25 = 80 blades, and from testing, more than 80 blades makes no difference.

My latest design consists of 2 turbines each with 20 rotors with full blades (80 blades)
4 full enderium coils plus one coil with 5 enderium blocks only.

27 x 5 x 5.

RPM: 1796.7
RF/t: 29362
@ 2000mB/t

 

I believe this is close to, if not the most efficient turbine configuration.

 

I've updated the reactor with 3 rods 9 high, plus enderium coolant, I'll modify this later on, so I can have both turbines share the same tesseract again.

I've also attached two railcraft Steam Turbines direct to the reactor, which means I have to add water to the system, using upgraded extra utilities liquid transfer nodes.

I'm sure I can redesign my reactor to get more efficiency, currently around 0.080 fuel usage 445% efficiency and I may have to get into the computer programming side of things, to counteract the on/off actions of the railcraft turbines, but its working fine ATM.

Edited May 21, 2014 by sedstr

[Curunir]

It is correct that vertical Turbines are easier to extend due to size limitations. However, if you really want to build an "80-blade" Turbine, I suggest using a 7x7 frame and stick 8 fan blades on every segment instead of 4. I believe this will save some material, although I'm in no mood right now to do the math. This should also allow you to build it horizontally to maximum or near maximum size, if you desire this.

 

About ludicrous amounts of power on a single output: If you exceed 10.000 RF/t, you also exceed the capacity of a single Redstone Energy Conduit. Tesseracts will take any amount, but keep in mind that the recipient(s) in the other end will have limits as well. Also remember the 25% flat loss of Tesseracts (at least that is the number I remember hearing). They are limitless, but not lossless.

 

Btw, I have The Core running now, pictures and numbers incoming shortly.  :-D

Edited May 21, 2014 by Curunir

[sedstr]

From my testing, anything more than 80 blades makes no difference, so building 7x7 horizontal, would only need to span 17 blocks max, 10 for each rotor+8 blades, ends, + 5 coils.

 

80 blades and same number of coils on both:

vertical 5 x 5 x 27 = 450 blocks

horizontal 7 x 7 x 17 = 458 blocks

 

8 block saving, not a lot but still...

 

I look forward to seeing your pics of 'The Core'

Edited May 22, 2014 by sedstr