Safe and automated nuclear reactor? (Playing on Infinity evolved)

[Azzanine]

I kind of wish there was a good tutorials for the mechanics of IC2 reactors. Most I have found just teach you the very basics then show you some designs to copy. No tutorial has yet shown me anything that lets me trulty understand IC2 reactor mecanics ti the point where I can experiment.

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[Pyure]

I kind of wish there was a good tutorials for the mechanics of IC2 reactors. Most I have found just teach you the very basics then show you some designs to copy. No tutorial has yet shown me anything that lets me trulty understand IC2 reactor mecanics ti the point where I can experiment.

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Are you talking about the reactor itself, or the actively-cooled stuff?

For the reactor itself, if you don't like just copying designs, you can learn everything you need at http://wiki.industrial-craft.net/index.php?title=Nuclear_Reactor

For the 5x5 active-cooled setups, there's explanations out there but its easiest to just find a youtube video that walks you through it.

 

[Azzanine]

I am of the impression that the actual mechanics for both style reactors are the same only difference being the fuel rods produce HU rather then EU. Of course that might mean there are different things to consider design wise, but mechanics should be the same.

Essentially I want to actually know what I'm doing when I build it. Not have it be a unknown blackbox system. TBH I probably would end up using another's blueprint anyway but I at least want to understand why their blueprints work like they do.

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[Pyure]

Essentially I want to actually know what I'm doing when I build it. Not have it be a unknown blackbox system. TBH I probably would end up using another's blueprint anyway but I at least want to understand why their blueprints work like they do.

Me too, but honestly? I've tried to build a reactor using all the math of all the components and I tend to just give up and go use a blueprint.

The nice thing: even if you steal a blueprint, you still at least have the option of building an actively-cooled setup. That part is actually kinda fun to do (minus the quirky ic2 steam explosions) and leaves tons of room for creativity.

As a for instance: I've noticed that every one in a blue moon my distilled-water lines pick up a bit of steam. I've no idea why, probably a bug. I'm going to add another kinetic steam generator that does nothing but catch this extra steam, generate a tiny bit of EU with it, and recycle the output distilled water back into the closed loop.

 

[Pyure]

Here we go, now that I've read up on the reactor mechanics and understand that cells need to be cardinally adjacent to interact, I've created the EfficiencyBarf-9000

http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...5ja63j36tfqo555ufs232f25g79tzjvp1ntmv06qwxou8

I'm probably going to add this to my base if I find I want more plutonium.
Full disclosure: I added those dual-rods more or less randomly. If you replace them with single-rods, you get a "perfect" Efficiency-1 reactor. You could probably get more dual rods in there if you want to. The primary goal of this endeavor is simply to process as much uranium as possible through a single reactor in a single cycle.

 

[GreenZombie]

I kind of wish there was a good tutorials for the mechanics of IC2 reactors. Most I have found just teach you the very basics then show you some designs to copy. No tutorial has yet shown me anything that lets me trulty understand IC2 reactor mecanics ti the point where I can experiment.

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So, you start by downloading this java applet: www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/v3/ICReactorPlannerV3.jar

Run that, and it lets you place most of the IC2 reactor components on the grid.

The crucial thing to note is that there are two seperate cooling models in IC2 reactors:
Fuel Rods produce heat and EU. Placing fuel rods next to each other (or using dual or quads) increases the EU and heat they produce. This heat has to go somewhere. In EU reactors (I think actively cooled ones change these mechanics) IF a fuel rod has an adjacent component that accepts heat, ALL that fuel rods heat will go into the adjacent components.
If there are no components that accept heat;Then the heat gets contributed to the reactor hull.

This is an example of this (http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...vgiv3lv0o2eque1ije023y29p0r7cper5fw7s8u5rz18g)
The fuel rod is dumping ALL the heat into the adjacent vent, which cannot take it and burns up, despite all the other, unused, vents. Remove the adjacent vent, and you can suddenly see a bunch of the other components take up the job of keeping the reactor cool, by taking heat from the reactor hull.

So, there are typically 2 kinds of reactor designs: Reactors where there are vents that accept heat directly adjacent to the fuel rods, and then a grid of components to spread that heat out. Or reactors where the fuel rods are kept isolated from any vents - by spaces, reactor platings or "Component Heat Vents" none of which accept heat from a fuel rod.

http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...g19282dpwwku3sk4jwn7in35zxw71zf8r2soht6g7dnnk

Is an example of such a reactor. All 96 heat units go into the hull: Reactor Heat Exchangers draw (up to) 72 heat, per tick, from the hull, Component Heat Exchangers balance that heat by spreading it to adjacnet Advanced Heat Vents, which each cool toff 12 heat per tick - x8 vents cools off exactly 96 heat units being produced.

With these principals in mind, all you can do is experiment.

 

[Chocohead]

So, you start by downloading this java applet: www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/v3/ICReactorPlannerV3.jar

You should really be using the newer one to guarantee your designs work, as it also supports MOX and fluid reactors.

 

[GreenZombie]

You should really be using the newer one to guarantee your designs work, as it also supports MOX and fluid reactors.

The newer one has, at least if it's the one I tried, a lot of buttons and other noise on the UI that make it far more difficult to toy with, at least for beginners and myself.
Until sanity prevails and it gets a facelift to simplify it, I will continue to prefer the old one for simple uranium designs at least.

 

[Chocohead]

The newer one has, at least if it's the one I tried, a lot of buttons and other noise on the UI that make it far more difficult to toy with, at least for beginners and myself.
Until sanity prevails and it gets a facelift to simplify it, I will continue to prefer the old one for simple uranium designs at least.

Uranium designs are still vunerable, http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...237rnw0mpwoezd1nxksl6ucaceovy6uixc92gxt2grpxc for example looks to be fine, but will explode after 1021 seconds when the bottom right vents melt. From memory advanced heat exchanges changed the amount of heat they can deal with, but it's a long while since anyone asked about it.

 

[Pyure]

Uranium designs are still vunerable, http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...vgiv3lv0o2eque1ije023y29p0r7cper5fw7s8u5rz18g for example looks to be fine, but will explode after 1021 seconds when the bottom right vents melt.

This doesn't look to be fine, it looks to explode. Am I reading this wrong? I thought your point was that http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/v3/reactorplanner.html wasn't reliable anymore.

 

[Chocohead]

This doesn't look to be fine, it looks to explode. Am I reading this wrong? I thought your point was that http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/v3/reactorplanner.html wasn't reliable anymore.

That's what I said, it looks to be fine on that planner, but will explode if you try and use it in game. The new planner however points out the heat imbalance and that the right side will melt.

 

[Pyure]

That's what I said, it looks to be fine on that planner, but will explode if you try and use it in game. The new planner however points out the heat imbalance and that the right side will melt.

Sorry choco, I'm feeling really stupid here and I hope you can clarify some tiny semantics.

You said "it looks to be fine on that planner" which I'm assuming you mean the V3 planner you included. So I clicked on the link, but the V3 planner you indicated ("that planner" presumably) doesn't show it being fine. It shows it running for 11 seconds.

 

[Chocohead]

Sorry choco, I'm feeling really stupid here and I hope you can clarify some tiny semantics.

You said "it looks to be fine on that planner" which I'm assuming you mean the V3 planner you included. So I clicked on the link, but the V3 planner you indicated ("that planner" presumably) doesn't show it being fine. It shows it running for 11 seconds.

:| That's not the link I meant at all! No wonder you were confused! I meant this - http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...237rnw0mpwoezd1nxksl6ucaceovy6uixc92gxt2grpxc

Fixed the original post too

 

[Pyure]

:| That's not the link I meant at all! No wonder you were confused! I meant this - http://www.talonfiremage.pwp.blueyo...237rnw0mpwoezd1nxksl6ucaceovy6uixc92gxt2grpxc

Fixed the original post too

hah ok thanks, i feel a lot better now

And woo that's an awesome reactor, building it now without any safeguards or supervision, thxthx.