Big Reactors Data for 1.7.10 (WIP)

[Gilba]

Yellorium is plentiful but not infinite, consumption is a major concern for me.
And, I made some more test rigs.

I finally managed to replicate your numbers where cryotheum makes for a more efficient reactor. It only occurs when the reactor is over 500 degrees. I never let my designs get over this mark, which is why graphite was always winning for me.
7x7x6, resonant ender cooled, passive, 4 rods with a single moderator block between them:
Control rods fully out:
Cryotheum was 8.03 KiRF/mb.
Graphite was 7.92 KiRF/mb.

Controlled to 995 degrees max:
Cryotheum was 8.286 KiRF/mb.
Graphite was 8.177 KiRF/mb.

Controlled to 488 degrees max:
Cryotheum was 8.314 KiRF/mb.
Graphite was 8.639 KiRF/mb.

Converting the unregulated rigs to active cooling:
Cryotheum was 4905msS/mbY.
Graphite was 4711msS/mbY.

Converting the 488 rigs to active cooling:
Cryotheum was 4204msS/mbY.
Graphite was 4416msS/mbY.

<redacted a bit of nonsense>

So I will amend my initial post. If your reactor is built sanely, graphite makes for a better interior substance. If you've done something crazy, like letting the thing run away to 2000 degrees, or just don't care about fuel efficiency. Wait. if you don't care about efficiency, would you be reading this? Whatever. I got my answers, I hope this helps someone else.

Edit: These numbers are from the 0.4 of BR that is in Direwolf20's 1.7.10 version 1.0.2 FTB pack. YMMV.

Edit:
Bah, I screwed up a formula on the spreadsheet. The Cryotheum in runaway was generating 266% more steam for 233% fuel over the regulated cryotheum build. As it stands, it is in fact better to let your reactors run away, if you just want more steam. Sorry about that. This means the cryotheum high temps are more efficient, and as consequences havent been implemented in Big Reactors, theres no reason to care.

I am still building my reactors as low temps, because I would hate to update BR one day and have my machine room explode.

 

[Bagman817]

I am still building my reactors as low temps, because I would hate to update BR one day and have my machine room explode.

Considering the number of blocks involved, the 'consequences' might be quite spectacular. Spectacular as in "I hope you don't plan on logging into that world ever again."
Regarding efficiency, I submit DW20's 10x consumption is still too low for it to be a concern, as long as Uranium is ore dictionary equivalent to Yellorium, and in my next world I'll either change that, or remove IC2 altogether.

 

[Skyqula]

So I will amend my initial post. If your reactor is built sanely, graphite makes for a better interior substance.

This is a 27*29*3. Its controlled to 50% to fall within the 50B/t max. Efficiency using cryotheum between the rods: 79666 mB of steam per tick at a temperature of 385 and radiation levels of 586%.
The same 27*29*3 also controlled to 50% to fall within the 50B/t max. Effiency using graphite between the rods: 78920 mB of steam per tick at a temperature of 440 and radiation levels of 592%.

Now granted, I could have used the 1% sliders to get abit more out of them. I still might look further into exactly when graphite beats cryotheum. But its not as simple as over temperature x or radiation y.

Another example using your 9*9*3 reactor design vs my budget 9*9*3 design vs my dotted 9*9*3 design. Of note, this is with default settings. For direwolfs pack simply multiply fuel usage by 10 and divide RF/ingot & steam/ingot by 10

Passive cooling no controll rod settings:
Your design: 1866 RF/t at 0.028 mB/t for 66642 kRF/ingot
My budget: 4700 RF/t at 0.055 mB/t for 85454 kRF/ingot
My dotted: 9330 RF/t at 0.127 mB/t for 73464 kRF/ingot

With mine set to match your output:
My budget: 1868 RF/t at 0.022 mB/t for 84909 kRF/ingot
My dotted: 1931 RF/t at 0.022 mB/t for 87818 kRF/ingot

Active cooling no controll rod settings:
Your design: 942 mB/t at 0.028 mB/t for 33642 B of steam per ingot
My budget: 2440 mB/t at 0.055 mB/t for 44363 B of steam per ingot
My dotted: 6400 mB/t at 0.116 mB/t for 551724 B of steam per ingot

With mine set to match your output:
my budget: 951 mB/t at 0.024 mB/t for 39625 B of steam per ingot
My dotted: 980 mB/t at 0.022 mB/t for 44545 B of steam per ingot

From this we see that more fuel rods simply win (higher radiation levels). We also see that more fuel rods needs rod controll to be efficient for passive cooling (because of high temperature). And another more hidden aspect: more fuel rods means less % of the fuel tank gets converted to waste. Up to 6.25% for your reactor, 2.78% for my budget and 1.19% for my dotted pattern.

So the sane reactor to build does not actually use graphite ;(

 

[GreenZombie]

Must admit I am a bit

Yellorium is plentiful but not infinite, consumption is a major concern for me.
And, I made some more test rigs.

I finally managed to replicate your numbers where cryotheum makes for a more efficient reactor. It only occurs when the reactor is over 500 degrees. I never let my designs get over this mark, which is why graphite was always winning for me.

I am a bit surprised by this: The hard radiation % goes up with the temp - at such low temps the % of hard radiation that would benefit from moderation should be quite low making graphite rather useless. What with the very limited range (4 blocks) the radiation travels, far better to feed it directly into another fuel rod than wasting time converting a fraction of a fraction. Of course, with the rods packed together, the reactor runs hotter with the lower area exposed to coolant ...

 

[The_Glaive]

Guys, I have built a frame for a reactor that is 32x32x16(tall) that is going to be powering 20 turbines at max flow rate, and I was hoping to be pointed in the right direction as far as fuel rod configuration, coolant placement, and possibly control rod %.

 

[beewyka819]

a 9x9x9 reactor with 5 fuel rods in the middle with cryotheum works, if you want to have it automatically manage it's fuel efficiency you can use a rednet port and programmable rednet controller. PurpleMentat shows you how to set that up in one of his agrarian skies episodes where he builds it. It produces about 20 KiRF/t! If you want turbines it also produces a crap ton of steam so you just need to convert it and make the 7x7x17 turbines mentioned above, which PurpleMentat also did, except when PurpleMentat built his he placed 5 extra coils, in the latest version you only want the 4 layers of 8 per layer without the extra five.

 

[MacAisling]

Guys, I have built a frame for a reactor that is 32x32x16(tall) that is going to be powering 20 turbines at max flow rate, and I was hoping to be pointed in the right direction as far as fuel rod configuration, coolant placement, and possibly control rod %.

My limited testing in small scale indicates that you need 8 fuel rod blocks & a good coolant for every 2000 mb/t of steam you want to produce, & that actual arrangement of those rods makes minor variations in temp & output, but no difference in fuel consumption. If you have to adjust the control rods it is because your reactor is bigger than it needs to be. After playing around with the big reactor simulator, I'm happy with my 7x7x3 reactor with 8 fuel rods in a ring for a single turbine.

160 fuel rod blocks / 14 blocks per column = 11-12 columns to play with (at that scale you may be able to drop a few blocks, as I was getting a little extra steam with 8 but not enough with 7). On to the simulator to see what that would look like...

 

[MacAisling]

Guys, I have built a frame for a reactor that is 32x32x16(tall) that is going to be powering 20 turbines at max flow rate, and I was hoping to be pointed in the right direction as far as fuel rod configuration, coolant placement, and possibly control rod %.

Nope, your reactor size is unmanageable & unnecessary. I'm not even going to try. Here is a 12x12x7 design that will produce enough steam for 20 turbines using only resonant ender as coolant or 21 if using a combination of resonant ender & gelid cryotheum. Looks like you can get away with 120 fuel rod blocks at that scale. With the cryotheum design you can set the control rods to 8% to save a little fuel.

 

[Skyqula]

If you have to adjust the control rods it is because your reactor is bigger than it needs to be.

Thats not the complete picture or a correct statement without defining a reason why.

More fuel rods has it advantages to the point that its almost always better to have more fuel rods then you need and use rod controll to reach the output level you want. It also reduces the effect of waste build up stabilizing RF/steam output.

A bigger reactor, even if you dont fill it, increases the amount of heat allowed per 1C temperature increase. What this comes down to is lower reactor temperatures resulting in less fast radiation and therefor more fuel vertilization and more heat generated from coolants.

The downside of making a bigger reactor is that it becomes harder and harder to get the desired steam/RF output as the amount per 1% rod insertion becomes bigger and bigger. Though thats not something that cant be compensated for with buffers (tanks/cells).

Nope, your reactor size is unmanageable & unnecessary.

Because of the above, using his desired dimensions we get this reactor. 99% insertion, produces steam for 21.5 turbines. As can be seen we cannot fine tune this to 40B/t with rod insertion (one could simply remove a few fuel rods). And the most important aspect, it has an efficieny of 104B/mB. Compared to your 73B/mB. Thats a 42% increase in efficiency! Expensive? Sure. Unmanageable? Defenitly manageble, long live the buildcraft floadgate or builder (you can save fluid layouts!!!). Unnecessary? Depends on his fuel income, we dont have the information to say annything about this.

 

[MacAisling]

Thats not the complete picture or a correct statement without defining a reason why.

I bow before the imagination of Skyqula! Knowing that he only needed a minimum of 11 rods at that reactor height, I took 1 look at all that space & said "no way in hell".

At a 16 tall reactor, my favorite ring of 8 will work, but you need the 2nd layer of coolant, making a 9x9x16 reactor, but the efficiency only comes up to 78B/mB.

I imagine he could run the thing for quite a while at the less efficient rate with the yellorium he'd save by not building it that big.

 

[Pyure]

Are we still limited to 2k steam per turbine? Are people really building enough turbines to consume all this steam?

 

[zilvarwolf]

I'm sure they are. My server has a central power authority with 6 turbines feeding into a tesseract line that anyone and everyone is free to draw from. And we still have at least one nutjob who wants his OWN set of turbines and multiple enderIO capacitor banks expanded to MaxInt RF.

 

[Pyure]

One thing I've noticed is that the vast majority of reactors can be optimized for maximum efficiency (according to the simulator) by running them at approximately 750C. The popular myth is that the magical number is more like 850C, but the simulator says otherwise. Notwithstanding that you may prefer to get your steam in perfectly multipliers of 2k.

 

[MacAisling]

Are we still limited to 2k steam per turbine? Are people really building enough turbines to consume all this steam?

He specifically said he wanted to run 20 maxed turbines, so 40K mb/t steam is what I looked at. I'm afraid to ask him why he wants 20 turbines...

FYI, looks like if you are putting iron blocks in your turbine coils, you'd be better off sticking with a passive reactor.

 

[Pyure]

He specifically said he wanted to run 20 maxed turbines, so 40K mb/t steam is what I looked at. I'm afraid to ask him why he wants 20 turbines...

FYI, looks like if you are putting iron blocks in your turbine coils, you'd be better off sticking with a passive reactor.

My question was tangential really, for my own curiosity. I'm still learning BR myself.