Nuclear reactor complex - as built by an electrical engineer

[littleweseth]

Map Save

Here's what you get when an electrical engineer gets to nuclear power plant design. Full imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/WkRtZ

It's a Mark I reactor that relies on active cooling via a big fat supply of ice blocks. The main feature is that all the safety-critical subsystems are monitored to make sure the reactor never blows up. If something goes wrong, the red lights in the control room will let you know (so you can go off and fix it.)

Switchyard - trying to make this look like a real electrical substation. (It'll be years before I get to design one of these in real life.)

Fault trips panel - red lights are bad.

Overview of reactor complex:

This was built as a proof of concept using NEI and creative mode. Next step is to build it legitimately (for real!) on a Tekkit server.

More screenshots in the Imgur album [ http://imgur.com/a/WkRtZ ]. If you want the save-world, more screenshots or building instructions for a particular part, ask.

[SwiftLegend]

Share that world save :D

[Gristle]

What is the purpose of the 3x3 stacks of HV transformers?

[littleweseth]

@Gristle: They're MFSUs, not HV transformers. There are 30 of them, for a total of 30 million EU stored. I believe this is sufficient to store the entire amount of energy produced by the nuclear reactor in one fuel cycle.

[Torezu]

30 MFSUs will store 300 million EU. This is probably closer to the entire cycle of the reactor you described.

I like it. Chances of a schematic file?

[32ndArtbomb]

Impressive, most impressive. The only things I personally would've done differently would be to give the switchyard a combination of LV, MV, and HV outputs instead of 3x HV, possibly gone for a whole-hog Mark I-I-SUC reactor layout (which would require a frankly terrifying amount of ice generation and even more safeties, IMO), and maybe even incorporated a lapotron charger that moves empty lapotrons from one ender chest and deposits full ones in another for long-distance energy transfer.

[littleweseth]

@Torezu:

You're right - I meant 300,000,000 EU.

By "Schematic file", do you mean a zip of the Minecraft save folder, or something different?

@32ndArtbomb:

The way I see it, the power plant's job is to provide a fat source of 512EU/packet HV power. Turning that into MV/LV is the end-user's problem.

The output of the reactor is somewhat restricted by my paranoia, and by the design of the control/cooling systems - I needed one side of the reactor accessible for the cooling pipe, and one side free for the redstone control. So I only have four chambers available.

Didn't even think of using lapotron crystals for long-distance transmission. Personally my plan was to run a EHV transmission line with substations near to the end users to step down to HV (this appeals to the electrical engineer in me. )

[asmit10]

Can you share the save?

[Torezu]

Schematics are saves of sets of blocks produced by MCEdit, along with their contents and states (some glitchiness can be expected, sometimes). A save file would work just as well, but schematics are usually much smaller.

Side note: I think the redstone can be supplied to any of the chambers. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Also, the newest version of IC2 may let you pipe ice into a chamber as well.

[littleweseth]

@ Torezu: redstone will act on any of the chambers, but Redpower2's red alloy wires have slightly funny behaviour. They don't seem to think that IndustrialCraft2 machines (including the reactor) are valid things to connect to a red alloy wire.

I could have applied the redstone using vanilla redstone dust, but I didn't like the looks of that. Redstone dust also has the annoying habit of washing away in water (red alloy wires stay put when subjected to water.) This was relevant when the reactor design was water cooled.

As far as the pipework goes, I don't see anything in the IC2 changelog to indicate that pipes can now be connected to reactor chambers in new versions of IC2. This makes me a bit sad.

I'll upload a schematic (or world save) tonight. The world is superflat, so an archive of the world compresses nicely to a couple hundred kB.

[littleweseth]

I've uploaded the save file here: Nuke Test V.zip. This is a Technic SSP Recommended Build world (Technic 6.0.7 / MC 1.1).

I've added some scenery (roads!) and a switchroom, patterned after real-world 33/11kV switchboards I've seen in industry. There are three incomers and six feeders - only one of which is currently being used (for the ice plant). The other five are where "customers" would connect to. The switchboard gives me the capability to disconnect customers who don't pay their bills.

Note: More practically, if the storage batteries have all been sucked dry, the switchboard lets me disconnect all the customers so I can use all available power to run the cooling plant, which lets me run the nuclear reactor, which lets me charge up the batteries again. Real-world power plants are designed the same way.

[The Merchant of Menace]

This is some nice stuff man.

Shifted this to the right section, resized your images and edited your link into the OP.

[Gristle]

Can you explain how the ice factory works? It didn't seem to be doing anything after the ice supply in the chest was depleted. Are there supposed to be compressors under the Adv. Insertion pipes?

[littleweseth]

@Gristle

Yes, there are supposed to be 16 Singularity Compressors under the advanced insertion pipes. Regular compressors will do, but you'll have to throw a stack of upgrades into them (transfomer upgrade and multiple overclocker upgrades, at a minimum.)

Are you using the Recommended Build or the Development Build of Technic?

[Gristle]

Recommended.

Cleared cache and re-downloaded Technic client. It's all there now and makes much more sense. :)

[32ndArtbomb]

@ Torezu: redstone will act on any of the chambers, but Redpower2's red alloy wires have slightly funny behaviour. They don't seem to think that IndustrialCraft2 machines (including the reactor) are valid things to connect to a red alloy wire.

You can use red alloy wire with IC2 machines, but you have to place an uninsulated wire right on the machine block - crouch while placing it to keep from bringing up any UI - for the red alloy wire to connect.

[littleweseth]

@32ndArtBomb:

Crouch-right-click is a GREAT trick. Thank you.

In other news, [i made the front page of the Technic website!](http://www.technicpack.net/how-realistic-are-these-mods/). I also made #2 in reddit/r/minecraft last night.

Now I just have to build something slightly better than this nuclear reactor, such that I get to #1 on Reddit /r/minecraft... and then onto the Reddit front page, and then onto the WORLD.

[ErusPrime]

as a new student in ECE, this looks awesome.

[littleweseth]

@ErusPrime:

Would you believe I actually had to go digging for my digital logic textbook? I forgot how latches are supposed to work - or more accurately, I remembered how they were supposed to work, but Redpower2's RS latch has funky behaviour. (This is apparently fixed in newer builds of Redpower2.)

Grats on becoming an ECE student! You have a few years of extremely mind-bending mathematics coming your way. (Tell me if you actually truly understand vector calculus when you get to it. I did an entire math degree and I'm still unsure about it...)

I'm a graduate B. Eng (Elec) / B. Sc. (Math), by the way. I also took some computer science courses as electives - probably the hardest, and most rewarding, subjects I ever did.

[ErusPrime]

@ErusPrime:

Would you believe I actually had to go digging for my digital logic textbook? I forgot how latches are supposed to work - or more accurately, I remembered how they were supposed to work, but Redpower2's RS latch has funky behaviour. (This is apparently fixed in newer builds of Redpower2.)

Grats on becoming an ECE student! You have a few years of extremely mind-bending mathematics coming your way. (Tell me if you actually truly understand vector calculus when you get to it. I did an entire math degree and I'm still unsure about it...)

I'm a graduate B. Eng (Elec) / B. Sc. (Math), by the way. I also took some computer science courses as electives - probably the hardest, and most rewarding, subjects I ever did.

I've never found math to be hard. I've never taken more than algebra in school though. Never needed it for my previous career attempt and now I've forgotten all of it.

the computer science is my primary reason for wanting to do ECE.

2 words. mothafuckin robots.

[littleweseth]

@ErusPrime:

If you want to learn you some computer science on the sly, go hang out on Stack Overflow. A surprising number of computer science, image processing, and even some mathematics questions wash up there - amongst the sea of newbie PHP and Java questions, that is. The answers are usually very insightful - you end up learning things you'd never have learnt either in university or in self-directed study.

Here's one of my favourite robotics-related questions: Algorithm Improvement for Coca-Cola Can Recognition. And a Minecraft-related one: How are massive cellular automata simulated?

(Note: This thread is now officially OT. Care to continue over an IM channel of some kind?)

[littleweseth]

As an indication of just how much spare time I have, I present partial schematics of the control system.

[ErusPrime]

As an indication of just how much spare time I have, I present partial schematics of the control system.

lol. waaaayyyy too much spare time.

[tiffit]

can you email me the world

[email protected]

[littleweseth]

can you email me the world

[email protected]

@ Tiffit: No. I already uploaded it to my website.

Read post #10 on this thread:

I've uploaded the save file here: Nuke Test V.zip. This is a Technic SSP Recommended Build world (Technic 6.0.7 / MC 1.1). <snip...>