ReactorCraft: Measuring output

[Demosthenex]

I've previously posted a large thread on reactor designs where I tried to compare different reactor layouts and had difficulty coming up with a metric to measure or grade them by.

The best I could do before was to hook up an HP turbine and have the output goto an industrial coil, with a clutch and a one hour timer. After the reactor "warmed up" I would charge the coil for one hour and measure the total GJ stored.

I'm preparing to start posting new reactor designs and wanted to discuss methods for measuring the reactor designs.

Unfortunately an HP turbine and parts requires significant effort to put together to test each design, and I'm trying to simplify. What other ways could a reactor be measured?

Total steam creation obtained by pipe measurements? That requires manual clicking and I could miss the timer.

Eventually I would like to get to the point where we can measure the efficiency of a design, say total output per stack of input fuel.

Ideas?

Edit: Maybe total steam produced at one output pipe with one fuel item per core until it runs out? Could pump the steam into that one pipe for measurement.

 

[Azzanine]

Dynamometer? (the block version)

I wonder how you can be proficient enough to reach the ReactorCraft level stuff but not know that one little tidbit...
That being said, the dynamometer block does have trouble displaying the sheer numbers that a well built reactor spits out.

Edit; If my memory serves me well I think there's a special reactor dynomometer, but I'm not certain.

 

[Demosthenex]

I'm trying to record the total output from a reactor. The dynamometer just shows current output, and I'd have to sum it across multiple turbines for larger reactors. I'm trying to find a way to measure it with minimal extra infrastructure.

 

[Azzanine]

What exactly do you want to know? The total wattage your reactor can put out? Then unless Reika's just introduced some sort of steam gauge (suggest it if it's not becasue that would be handy)
If so then you might have to settle for having a dynamometer on each turbine and doing some math.

 

[Pyure]

The last time I wanted to gauge and compare reactor outputs, I decided the best measurement was "total steam created". You've already mentioned the solution here: use the pump block to "pull" all steam in the network into a single pipe, and angular-transducer that block to get that value.

Some traces of steam do remain in the network but it seems pretty accurate overall, to within 0.01% precision anyway. I can't actually imagine a better way to compare them.

 

[Demosthenex]

The last time I wanted to gauge and compare reactor outputs, I decided the best measurement was "total steam created". You've already mentioned the solution here: use the pump block to "pull" all steam in the network into a single pipe, and angular-transducer that block to get that value.

Some traces of steam do remain in the network but it seems pretty accurate overall, to within 0.01% precision anyway. I can't actually imagine a better way to compare them.

Like I said, I had an HP turbine and a coil that charged for one hour off a nonstop running reactor in this thread:

http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/reactorcraft-fission-reactor-designs.47199/

Lots of setup to gauge the output.

What Pyure suggested what the first thought I came to as well, the steam pump outputting to one pipe, and just give it limited fuel. Then I can measure the total steam produced for X fuel pellets. That also gives a measure of efficiency.

Can we then determine how much power you can produce from that steam in turbines?

EDIT: One problem with that is while it gives total output, we have no measurement of time.

 

[Pyure]

Trying to determine the power from the steam as an analogy for reactor output is a bit tricky since the power output scales with steam output at a given time: a higher steam output with less efficiency could theoretically provide you more total power if it meant you could leverage the HP Turbine which (possibly?) produces more power per steam.

I dunno if I'd even bother trying to figure this out. To keep things simple I'd simply capture all steam from X pellets, say, 100,000 cubic meters or whatever its measured in, run it through a LP turbine, and see how much power I get. I'd then use that power/steam as my standard when comparing reactors.

Btw, it would be cool and realistic if the HP Turbine produced low-pressure steam (50% water and 50% lp-steam? Whatever)

I remember you trying to explain your clutch-gauge system to me last year. Months and months later I still don't get it, its just simpler to forget the energy and stick with comparing steam, since e=steam no matter what anyway (lp vs hp notwithstanding)

 

[Demosthenex]

Trying to determine the power from the steam as an analogy for reactor output is a bit tricky since the power output scales with steam output at a given time: a higher steam output with less efficiency could theoretically provide you more total power if it meant you could leverage the HP Turbine which (possibly?) produces more power per steam.

I dunno if I'd even bother trying to figure this out. To keep things simple I'd simply capture all steam from X pellets, say, 100,000 cubic meters or whatever its measured in, run it through a LP turbine, and see how much power I get. I'd then use that power/steam as my standard when comparing reactors.

Btw, it would be cool and realistic if the HP Turbine produced low-pressure steam (50% water and 50% lp-steam? Whatever)

I remember you trying to explain your clutch-gauge system to me last year. Months and months later I still don't get it, its just simpler to forget the energy and stick with comparing steam, since e=steam no matter what anyway (lp vs hp notwithstanding)

HP turbine outputs to a clutch then to a coil. Start with an empty coil. There's a CC computer next to the clutch, it turns on the clutch for one hour, then off. The coil now contains 1 hour of power from the reactor which you can measure in Joules. The issue is building that massive HP turbine for each test. I had a single player world with 15 reactor designs all hooked up to these and it's too much effort. I did make a CC turtle program that would create a HP turbine, maybe I need to review it again.

 

[Pyure]

Cool turtle program

I'm curious, do you usually rock 2+ tall reactors these days? "Back in my day" everyone was still doing 1-tall reactors, but it seems like you can get higher-efficiency results per pellet (somewhat) by going taller according to your other threads.

 

[Demosthenex]

Cool turtle program

I'm curious, do you usually rock 2+ tall reactors these days? "Back in my day" everyone was still doing 1-tall reactors, but it seems like you can get higher-efficiency results per pellet (somewhat) by going taller according to your other threads.

I had tried vertically stack reactors, and Reika had to do a few bugfixes to make them work. I believe you can now in 25z and newer. The waste flows to to bottom, the fuel inserted from the top, and boilers support pushing water and steam upward.

I do however believe temperature is only distributed horizontally. I'd have to doublecheck.

 

[Pyure]

Ok in other words, we're still sticking with traditional 1-high these days for the most part and my knowledge isn't totally obsolete, yay

 

[Demosthenex]

Ok, I'm now measuring reactor output by using a steam pump and running it for one minute and dividing to get steam per second. Given you need 20 steam/s for a turbine, and 160 s/s for an HP turbine, this is adequate.

 

[zemerick]

...
Unfortunately an HP turbine and parts requires significant effort to put together to test each design, and I'm trying to simplify. What other ways could a reactor be measured?...

A bit late, but I figured you would want to know anyways:

HPT single stage consumes the same amount of steam as a maxed HPT. So, for testing purposes you just need to build a single stage, which isn't too bad.

 

[Demosthenex]

A bit late, but I figured you would want to know anyways:

HPT single stage consumes the same amount of steam as a maxed HPT. So, for testing purposes you just need to build a single stage, which isn't too bad.

I wrote a computercraft turtle program to 3d print these... I can use Worldedit I think, and Reika has a debug mode now to allow instant placement.

However the issue is the same, I'd have to then record the turbine output. I like the method of monitoring total steam produced over time instead. It's much simpler.