Yet another set of Big Reactors questions

[Ieldra]

I'm in an Agrarian Skies world and I'm trying to build my first actively cooled Big Reactor. Researching through various threads resulted in some answers - and more questions:

(1) Someone mentioned that turbines are capped at 2000mB/t of steam. I take it that means turbine setups that would theoretically work best with higher input are non-feasible?

(2) According to this table, which I hope applies to the version I'm using, for maximum power output with the materials available in AgS, I should build a turbine (assuming high speed) with 4 Enderium coils and 70 blades, which will output ca. 20KRF/t using up 1732 MB/t of steam. Am I reading the table correctly? What will happen if I use the 5-coil, 88-blade version, and supply the maximum amount of steam (which should be 2000mB/t, right)?

(3) How much water do I need for a given amount of steam? How do people get enough water? And do I need to actively draw out water created by the turbines?

The purpose of this reactor setup will be to power eight MFR laser drills. I have a setup for a reactor big enough to power four turbines comfortably at a reasonable efficiency, so that part is not a problem.

Also, there has been a testing spreadingsheet linked in some old thread I can't find anymore (not the one I linked above, but a much more comprehensive one). Does anyone recall that and can provide a link. Many thanks!

 

[wolfsilver00]

I'm in an Agrarian Skies world and I'm trying to build my first actively cooled Big Reactor. Researching through various threads resulted in some answers - and more questions:

(1) Someone mentioned that turbines are capped at 2000mB/t of steam. I take it that means turbine setups that would theoretically work best with higher input are non-feasible?

(2) According to this table, which I hope applies to the version I'm using, for maximum power output with the materials available in AgS, I should build a turbine (assuming high speed) with 4 Enderium coils and 70 blades, which will output ca. 20KRF/t using up 1732 MB/t of steam. Am I reading the table correctly? What will happen if I use the 5-coil, 88-blade version, and supply the maximum amount of steam (which should be 2000mB/t, right)?

(3) How much water do I need for a given amount of steam? How do people get enough water? And do I need to actively draw out water created by the turbines?

The purpose of this reactor setup will be to power eight MFR laser drills. I have a setup for a reactor big enough to power four turbines comfortably at a reasonable efficiency, so that part is not a problem.

Also, there has been a testing spreadingsheet linked in some old thread I can't find anymore (not the one I linked above, but a much more comprehensive one). Does anyone recall that and can provide a link. Many thanks!

1) I think it means that you can't input more than 2000mb/t steam into the turbine, but don't quote me, I may be completely wrong. I do know that when I tried pumping (aproximately 5kmb/t steam) all my steam on the turbine, it got like 1 or 2krf more, not much of a difference..

2) I guess the power would be capped down, and that would incur in a loss in efficiency for the materials you put in there, to be hones I would just go for another reactor instead of wasting a coil and 18 blades for just 2krf difference..

3) 1 bucket of water creates 50mb/t for 20 ticks if im not wrong.. I guess the best way to get water is to use extra utilities, with the fluid pipe, I'll have to say that you WILL need a stack of speed upgrades to keep up with a maxed turbine steam needs.. As for the water created in turbines, the best thing to do is to use (again) extra utilities pipes, and connect those pipes to the pipes going into your reactor, that way the same water you get from the turbines can be used to get more steam, in which case you wouldn't need that stack of speed upgrades for your water source..

 

[Zarkov]

I'm in an Agrarian Skies world and I'm trying to build my first actively cooled Big Reactor. Researching through various threads resulted in some answers - and more questions:

(1) Someone mentioned that turbines are capped at 2000mB/t of steam. I take it that means turbine setups that would theoretically work best with higher input are non-feasible?

There is a cap at 2000 mB/t, which means you need to build multiple separate turbines for larger big reactors. When I converted my reactor to actively cooled and added a single turbine, it reached 7000 degrees. I actually ended up skipping turbines since I wasn't that eager to clone up 4-5 complete turbines.

 

[ratchet freak]

can't you just put more fluid interfaces around the turbine?

 

[wolfsilver00]

can't you just put more fluid interfaces around the turbine?

As far as I know the limit is for the total imput, not just for each side..

 

[Ieldra]

There is a cap at 2000 mB/t, which means you need to build multiple separate turbines for larger big reactors. When I converted my reactor to actively cooled and added a single turbine, it reached 7000 degrees. I actually ended up skipping turbines since I wasn't that eager to clone up 4-5 complete turbines.

You'll get a lot more power out of the actively-cooled ones though. According to that table to which I lost the link, a 9x9x9 reactor with an x-pattern of 5 pillars of fuel rods can create more than 10000 mB/t of steam, which would mean five times the power output of a passively-cooled one. Also, Agrarian Skies inevitably has some repetitive tasks. While building four identical turbines isn't exactly the most interesting thing you can do, it beats setting up 512 Igneous Extruders, I can tell you that.

 

[Zarkov]

You'll get a lot more power out of the actively-cooled ones though. According to that table to which I lost the link, a 9x9x9 reactor with an x-pattern of 5 pillars of fuel rods can create more than 10000 mB/t of steam, which would mean five times the power output of a passively-cooled one. Also, Agrarian Skies inevitably has some repetitive tasks. While building four identical turbines isn't exactly the most interesting thing you can do, it beats setting up 512 Igneous Extruders, I can tell you that.

That does sound a bit like a chore. I'm pretty happy with the 100k RF/t I get from my passively cooled reactor, fuel consumption isn't a problem either. From what I've seen, when you build a large enough reactor, turbines seems to drop off dramatically in "value" (all things considered). If I could build a single really large turbine, that would be much better IMHO.

 

[Ieldra]

That does sound a bit like a chore. I'm pretty happy with the 100k RF/t I get from my passively cooled reactor, fuel consumption isn't a problem either. From what I've seen, when you build a large enough reactor, turbines seems to drop off dramatically in "value" (all things considered). If I could build a single really large turbine, that would be much better IMHO.

100KRF/t? Would you mind telling me the design you're using? And your fuel consumption? At this point I wouldn't mind ditching the turbines for now, I have too much to do elsewhere. I do want to build the turbines eventually since they're looking good though.

Basically the only real problem with building a big big reactor is getting enough Niter for the Cryotheum, but my 24 supercharged Industrial Apiaries will take care of that once I've bred the necessary bee species.

 

[Zarkov]

100KRF/t? Would you mind telling me the design you're using? And your fuel consumption? At this point I wouldn't mind ditching the turbines for now, I have too much to do elsewhere. I do want to build the turbines eventually since they're looking good though.

Basically the only real problem with building a big big reactor is getting enough Niter for the Cryotheum, but my 24 supercharged Industrial Apiaries will take care of that once I've bred the necessary bee species.

The reactor is 15x15 blocks in the base and 11 blocks tall (13x13x9 internally). Only using molten ender so far, will probably get a little better efficiency with cryotheum.

Pictures:

Spoiler

Spoiler

All control rods are inserted 40%, 405 fuel rod segments in total. It consumes about 1.5 mB/t.

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

1) A single turbine will only accept 2000mb/t, can always build more if u have more steam.
2) Go here for max turbine http://ftbwiki.org/Big_Reactors/HighestPowerData, 7x7 base 17 high exterior, with 37 enderium blocks as coils and 80 blades.
3) Amount of steam = amount of water, prime the system with Liquid Transfer nodes with a bunch of mining and speed upgrades, the turbines will give back the water once running. No you don't need to extract but the only feasible way of handling the volumes is to put tesseracts directly on the ports.

 

[Ieldra]

@Zarkov:
Thank you. Seems a little less fuel-efficient than I'd like, but this will give me a size estimate.

@ScottulusMaximus:
Thanks for the link, that helps.

 

[Darkone84]

Didn't Erogenous Beef say at one stage the if your reactor gets too hot It will blow up? I guess he hasn't done this yet.

@Zarkov:
Even if it's not really fuel efficient I still think it looks cool.

 

[Ieldra]

After some research I've decided to use this design:

(yellow=fuel rods, blue=cryotheum, green=resonant Ender, grey=casing, white=anything)

It's one of the most fuel-efficient designs if you don't go to really extreme sizes, and it scales well between 50% and 90% control rod insertion without losing much efficiency. Loses efficiency if run at full power but that's why I'm making it bigger than strictly needed. the 15x15x7 version will generate about 40kRF/t at 40% fuel rod insertion and 20B/t of steam at 50%, so I can start with running it passively and later switch to active cooling at 70% control rod insertion (since I don't need 20B/t of steam) which is the sweet spot in fuel efficiency.

 

[GreenZombie]

1. I like the design.
2. The water and steam between a big reactor and turbines can form a closed loop. You obviously need to prime the system with water, but the conversion of water to steam, and steam to water, is lossless. In AgS, use Tesseracts to transport steam and water. They have no transfer limits at all when connected directly to devices.

 

[Ieldra]

I've built the reactor and it works as intended - fuel efficiency goes down drastically at full power because it gets rather hot, but I built it to work well at 50% control rod insertion and it does that - at 50%, this 15x15x7 reactor has 1.8 times the power output of my old 9x9x9 at full power, but uses up the same amount of fuel. I have to wait for the cyanite I need for the turbines, so I have time to plan while my first two Laser Drills start collecting.

Water:
I take it it's also possible to place the turbine adjacent to the reactor so that the coolant ports and the fluid ports touch? Also, if the water system is closed, can I get away with using my stored 16KBu of water for priming and supplying the supposedly small amount of lost water with a few Aqueous Accumulators? Or do I need to build that insane amount of Transfer Node upgrades the Mindcrafters' tutorial recommends?

I take it turbine orientation doesn't matter? I'd like to have them pointed downward... and are there any restrictions on fluid port placement? If they need to be in the bottom (i.e. the side with the rotor bearing), I'll have to use tesseracts if I want to keep them pointed downward.

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

Yes. Yes, no AA's necessary tho it's 100% closed loop. No

No it doesn't matter, no as long as they're not on the "frame"

 

[Zarkov]

Didn't Erogenous Beef say at one stage the if your reactor gets too hot It will blow up? I guess he hasn't done this yet.

@Zarkov:
Even if it's not really fuel efficient I still think it looks cool.

Thanks. I figured that if a single regular BC quarry is enough to give me a good surplus of Yellorium, why really worry about efficiency? Still, I'm hoping it will improve a bit when I get cryotheum.

 

[Skyqula]

Also, there has been a testing spreadingsheet linked in some old thread I can't find anymore (not the one I linked above, but a much more comprehensive one). Does anyone recall that and can provide a link. Many thanks!

I wonder...

After some research I've decided to use this design:

Ok, obviously this one!

It badly needs to be polished up /dread

Ill do it with the next version update and the coolant values rework...

 

[Ieldra]

Wow, those actively-cooled reactors are efficient. I'm now using the same 15x15x7 design with turbines, and at 55% rod insertion it creates enough steam to power eight maximum-size turbines. I'm making 192 KRF/t with just 0.27 mB/t of reactor fuel. The setup looks really cool as well: