Big Reactors

[Tohejam]

So I recently got back into Tekkit after a long hiatus from Minecraft in general. I've been messing around with the Big Reactors mod as my main power source and upgraded from a 5x5x5 reactor to a larger 11x11x6 one. It has 144 fuel rods in four towers of 3x3x4 with a one block gap between each fuel rod tower and the reactor walls. I've also filled every available empty space with Gelid Cryotheum.

 

Currently, this is the readout I'm getting from the GUI.

 

The casing heat fluctuates from 2045-2050 C, and the core heat fluctuates from 2110-2120 C. I've heard that the optimal temperature for the Big Reactors should be around 900 C or something.

 

I have the control rods set to 20%, which cut down the fuel usage from about 1 mB/t to what it currently is now, while dropping the power production by about 2 KiRF/t.

 

Onto my question, though: is this setup okay? I'm wondering if this is actually a really inefficient reactor and if so, could it be improved in any way?

[Curunir]

Medium-compact setups like yours need to be run at rods 60-70% or even higher to get to the optimal temperature, which indeed is around 900°C. Remember that the Control Rods moderate the reaction, i.e. slow it down, so the higher this percentage, the cooler it will run.

Your reading says that your reactor is rather inefficient, compared to what it could be. But if you can supply fresh Yellorium at the rate it is consumed, I see no reason to change it. Any Yellorium Ingot consumed is a Cyanite Ingot produced, so if you plan on building an actively-cooled reactor by attaching Turbines, you actually want that. Turbines take quite a bit of Cyanite to make. With well-designed Turbines, you can get those ~40k RF/t with just 0.100 mB/t of Yellorium. An optimal passive (=Turbine-less) setup will get down to maybe 0.300 mB/t for the same power.

 

If you do have trouble supplying Yellorium at that rate, you can just increase Control Rod settings (need to set each individual rod, or use a Rednet or Computer Port to remote-control them), or change the setup to one with less rods overall, or less tightly packed.

Because of the nearly limitless design options, it is hard to really recommend any particular design. Your rod blocks are alright, although some prefer a slimmer design with just one central 3x3 or 4x4 rod block. I personally like to make such a layout, and just increase reactor height when I need to stack more power.

[PompanoZombie]

Im learning more and more every day

[Curunir]

As it should be. :-)

[Tohejam]

So after spending some time running my reactor and gathering a few stacks of cyanite, I've decided to move onto building some turbines.

 

Using the exact same reactor setup, I built the reactor again on a creative world and one 7x7x9 turbine (to prevent confusion, it's 7 blocks wide, 7 blocks tall, and 9 blocks long) using two rings of gold blocks for the turbine coil. I set my control rods to 90%, yet the heat of the reactor (both core and casing) were at about 3100 C. I know one turbine probably not going to even cover all the steam the reactor produces (currently, it's running off of one Aqueous Accumulator.)

 

So, a few more questions:

 

1. Do I need to cool the reactor even further with more water? I'm assuming I have to.
2. What would be the most efficient setup (size/number of turbines) for a reactor of the size I'm running?

Edited August 31, 2014 by Tohejam

[Curunir]

For Turbines, your setup is quite a bit too large - unless you were aiming for the 500000 RF/t area. You see, once you have Coolant Ports installed, your reactor core changes from an energy producer to a steam producer, and to keep temperatures on sane levels, you have to use all that steam. I guess a steam reactor that size would require twenty or more Turbines of the size you built to convert all that steam back into cooling water. An actively-cooled reactor needs to strike a balance between steam produced and steam used (in Turbines), and you need to supply fresh water at the rate that it is converted into steam. That rate is insanely high.

 

Note that the most efficient setup is a closed steam/water loop between reactor and Turbines, ideally with Coolant Ports directly touching. Fluiducts are much too small in capacity to transport the massive amounts of liquid required, and maxed-out Fluid Transfer Nodes are expensive to make.

 

>Here is a design example to give you an idea how much even a thin stalk reactor core can produce. Your core probably produces even more steam than this one.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Curunir

[Tohejam]

Thanks Curunir. I'll probably downsize my reactor to something a lot more reasonable to power the few turbines I can make, probably four. I might downsize the turbines as well, and use the spare bits to build a few more.

[HeatHunter]

if you are able to keep up the water-supply, you can also trash all those exceeding steam using a void waterproof pipe.

 

But remember, as long as you don't have a closed setup, you have to supply insane amounts of water.

 

This can be done with upgraded liquid transfer nodes (8000mb/t) you can also attach more than one Cooling-Port per reactor but the maximum water it can hold is 50000mb/t so the maximum stema you can produce with a reactor is also 50000mb/t