ReactorCraft Challenge

[ChemE]

I'm wondering if anyone else would like to participate in a challenge to wring the most amount of energy from one stack of breeder reactor fuel. This is forcing me to come up with better designs for a breeder reactor and a plutonium-only reactor both of which I tend to ignore normally. As I see it requirement #1 is all reactors should run a complete fuel cycle without melting down. To keep things comparable power should be generated via a high pressure steam turbine though I don't think that our designs must keep it running continuously. Meaning, it is okay to let steam build in the steam lines for a while before connecting up the turbine. Finally, just let the HP turbine output to a bedrock industrial coil to measure total energy output from one stack of breeder reactor fuel.

EDIT: I meant to say one stack of uranium fuel pellets which turns into four stacks of breeder reactor fuel and then four stacks of plutonium.

 

[ChemE]

@Pyure @Demosthenex @Reika

Can't think of who else to invite off the top of my head. Hoping someone else will want to play!

 

[Pyure]

Hah I totally wish I could, but my knowledge is a year outta date. I haven't played with ReactorCraft since before the turbines required lubricant, and some of the grind changes have kept me from jumping back in. I'm gonna stay out of the challenge just because I know I'd fail so hard

 

[ChemE]

Hah I totally wish I could, but my knowledge is a year outta date. I haven't played with ReactorCraft since before the turbines required lubricant, and some of the grind changes have kept me from jumping back in. I'm gonna stay out of the challenge just because I know I'd fail so hard

Doesn't have to be survival in fact I never test new designs in survival worlds since most of my tests end very badly

 

[Pyure]

Dangit, I don't know how I can even reject this. How much time do we get?

 

[Pyure]

Also don't let Reika do this, he can probably min-max it mentally, that's no fun

 

[ChemE]

Dangit, I don't know how I can even reject this. How much time do we get?

Unlimited. I was hoping there would be a good exchange of ideas on how to optimize things.

 

[ChemE]

Also don't let Reika do this, he can probably min-max it mentally, that's no fun

I doubt Reika will participate but I would be surprised if he could be beaten if he did play.

 

[ChemE]

Breeder Reactor Mark I - 37.559TJ from 256 breeder reactor fuel

Here is my current best design for a breeder reactor. I wanted something that could more or less match the steam consumption of a high pressure turbine and this design falls just a little short. I wait until there is 1,000 steam built up in the steam lines before connecting the steam lines to the turbine. The steam in the lines will drop very slowly until there is only 8 or so breeder cores active at which point it will drop like a stone. I built this layer at y-level 8 in a desert biome in order to minimize ambient cooling of the various blocks. I need to retest with ammonia but I believe this design is safe for ammonia since there are so many boilers.

 

[Pyure]

There's too many variables here for comparing reactors I feel. Would it make more sense to just compare how much steam you can eke out of your fuel, period? A pipe pump can be used to draw 99.9% of the steam in a system into a single block for measuring.

Also, if memory serves, I've achieved higher efficiencies by reducing the number of boilers. You want to avoid using your fuel to maintain a steady 99C, and excessive boilers tend to do that.

 

[ChemE]

This is far and away the fastest and most robust way I've seen of feeding water into the boilers. Each bedrock pipe section has an absolutely massive reserve capacity and because they are pressurized, water is feed into the boilers instantly. This system can build up around 2,000,000 buckets of water in the fluid compression chamber and pipe network and a fully heated boiler can't consume more than 200mB/t which these bedrock pipes laugh at.

 

[ChemE]

There's too many variables here for comparing reactors I feel. Would it make more sense to just compare how much steam you can eke out of your fuel, period? A pipe pump can be used to draw 99.9% of the steam in a system into a single block for measuring.

Also, if memory serves, I've achieved higher efficiencies by reducing the number of boilers. You want to avoid using your fuel to maintain a steady 99C, and excessive boilers tend to do that.

I'm good with that. That has the additional benefit of not having to build the HP turbine mutliblock too. I'll retest now with way fewer boilers and see if I do in fact get more steam with fewer boilers (and still don't melt down )

 

[Pyure]

ChemE, can you remind me if control-rods can be automatically raised-and-lowered as needed when the temperatures fluctuate? That would be a handy way to push the limits of a reactor.

 

[Pyure]

Also, at a glance, I'm going to say your reactor might lose efficiency due to a heating imbalance. The 2 center cores are going to be on average much hotter than the rest. (Put another way: most of your cores are being cooled by 3 boilers. Two of them are being cooled by zero boilers)

 

[ChemE]

ChemE, can you remind me if control-rods can be automatically raised-and-lowered as needed when the temperatures fluctuate? That would be a handy way to push the limits of a reactor.

I've actually never gotten control rods to function. I find them fairly non-intuitive. I am curious if they could lead to more efficient reactor designs though.