trouble with reactor

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Soyaro
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trouble with reactor

Post by Soyaro »

Hi,

I have a reactor-build with 6 cores, 80 heat exchangers and 138 turbines. My problem is that my heat exchangers, while having enough heat, don't run on full power. Currently I'm generating 108 MW while my base would need up to 200 MW, more than half my turbines aren't working and so is a significant amount of my heat exchangers.
I tried to search this forum for similar problems but didn't find a solution.

I put a bp-code below. Any ideas where my mistake could be?

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Kahnugo
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Kahnugo »

It looks like your turbines are only connected to water by three pipes. That would seem to be the main bottleneck. Also 6 cores wont be able to generate enough heat to fully support 80 heat exchangers, but I think the main issue is the edit: steam water supply.
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Soyaro »

4 times 120 MW heat + 2 times 160 MW heat due to the neighbour boost is a total of 800 MW heat. A consumption of 10 MW heat per exchanger results in a heat-supply for 80 exchangers. Or did I understand that wrong?

I thought about upgrading the steam supply but then I saw the top right block of turbines running completely even...
Is there a maximum per second that can travel through a pipe? Maybe this would help me understand the problem.
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Kahnugo
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Kahnugo »

Hmm I have no idea how I got that wrong, super simple calc too.. :p You are ofc correct. About the pipe throughput, that is limited, the exact limit depends on the length of the pipe as the thoughput depends on how much fluid is in the pipe. I'm honestly not sure about the exact figures on it, as I remember the wiki hadn't been updated for some time when I looked last time and they've fiddled with the fluid mechanics a couple of times, but not all that has been discussed has been implemented.

From what I see 1200 units/sec is generally true for pipes that are not connected to pumps or with pumps very close together. 3k seems to be the max for pipes, which match the 12k max for the pumps (based on the container size 100 vs 400). After a number of pipes the throughput will drop and you'd have to add a pump.
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Soyaro
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Soyaro »

Further math:
80 times 103 steam per second makes a total of 8240 steam wich is enough for 137,333... turbines, consuming 60 each. so according to my math I should be able to run 137 turbines at maximum, generating a total of 794,6 MW per second. Instead my generator reaches up to 110 MW and stops there...

I didn't find any information about a maximum amount traveling through pipes but I can't think of another explanation...

edit: You edited, so do I. adding pumps to the pipes seems like a nice idea. I'll lose some space but might get more electricity out of it.
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Kahnugo »

I figured I could add the bit about the pipe throughput before you got back to it, forgot to add the edit tag too.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system This is what I've been using as reference, but I got a bit unsure as to whether the numbers still match and if the underground 'trick' still works that way. I've never gotten around to try and test it for real though, generally it seems to still hold water so to speak. But I haven't really been pushing it either.
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Amarula
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Amarula »

Water/steam for my reactors was driving me crazy, here is the post: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=78470.
In particular, check out the response by disentius partway down the first page. His blueprint has almost zero pipes: water is pumped into a tank which pumps directly into the row of heat exchangers. There are no steam pipes at all, each heat exchanger feeds two turbines directly. I use the disentius design for all my reactors now.
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Soyaro
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Soyaro »

Just added some pumps before the turbines. now it seems to work way better.
note: from the top I am adding water from 2 water pumps just to be sure there is enough.

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disentius
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by disentius »

Thanks Amarula :)
The wiki numbers for pipe throughput are still correct. The only thing changed is the parallelization of the fluid updates.

[Edit]
Looked at your reactor: not enough turbines, see here: https://factoriocheatsheet.com/#nuclear-power

Also, connecting all pipes makes flows unpredictable, is a known shortcoming of the current fluid system.
last tip: you can connect the generators without pipes, something like this:
2020-12-01 18_22_40-Factorio 1.1.3.png
2020-12-01 18_22_40-Factorio 1.1.3.png (1.87 MiB) Viewed 4113 times
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Serenity
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Serenity »

Amarula wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 01, 2020 2:06 pm
 each heat exchanger feeds two turbines directly
That's nice for convenience and makes for nice builds, but the second turbine won't run fully. It's also possible to put a number of heat exchangers in a row and then all their turbines in line after them. Just don't interconnect water or steam lines. If you give fluids a choice about where to go that just causes a mess and some parts won't run properly. You can give each such row its own water supply. One offshore pump can supply 12 exchangers, which goes with 20 turbines
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Yoyobuae »

.
Last edited by Yoyobuae on Thu Dec 03, 2020 7:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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foamy
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by foamy »

Nuclear reactors are challenging because they can easily hit internal throughput limits and have limited tools for showing it (particularly on heat pipes).

However, you don't need pumps at all. As long as you don't try to move more than 1200/s of something through a pipe, you can manage quite long runs. This is particularly true since the maximum throughput limits only really impact the traversal between the final couple of heat exchangers and the first couple of turbines; once flow starts dropping below the magic 1200/s number, the length of the pipe very rapidly becomes irrelevant. In addition, the turbines themselves act as pumps.

The way the tiling works, in a 2xN reactor layout, you can make the limiting factor be the reactor output. This is because, in the limit, a 2xN reactor will output 160MW per five tiles, for 32MW/tile. A single heat pipe + exchanger + steam pipe layout, that shares the heat pipe, will tile in 3.5 tiles and output ~116.5 MW by filling its output pipe to 1200/s. That works out to ~33.2 MW/tile.

As long as the connection between the heat exchangers and the turbines is kept short and simple -- in particular, avoiding tanks -- an ordinary pipe can handle things without the use of pumps. Among other things, this will significantly reduce the power draw of the plant itself, vastly reducing its vulnerability to a brownout spiral and/or the amount of secondary power needed to avoid it (to just enough to pulse the inserters and handle their drain every 200s, which is hardly anything. Hell, you could even use burner inserters.)

Example here: viewtopic.php?p=504270#p504270

If you insist on tankage for monitoring the plant (you don't need it, because a. nuclear fuel is dirt cheap and b. there are alternatives) you can place those at the *ends* of a turbine array instead.
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by astroshak »

Serenity wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 01, 2020 5:49 pm
Amarula wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 01, 2020 2:06 pm
 each heat exchanger feeds two turbines directly
That's nice for convenience and makes for nice builds, but the second turbine won't run fully. It's also possible to put a number of heat exchangers in a row and then all their turbines in line after them. Just don't interconnect water or steam lines. If you give fluids a choice about where to go that just causes a mess and some parts won't run properly. You can give each such row its own water supply. One offshore pump can supply 12 exchangers, which goes with 20 turbines
Not quite. If you attempt that, then you will find that one Heat Exchanger won’t run fully.

Each Heat Exchanger wants 103 water/sec. One Offshore Pump can only supply 1200 water/sec, so you wind up being 36 water/sec short (1200 instead of 1236 water/sec).

The options are to use multiple Offshore Pumps per row of Heat Exchangers (which, coincidentally, allows you to chain together more than just 12 in a line, potentially 23 in a line with two Offshore Pumps feeding them), OR to shorten the line of Heat Exchangers from 12 to 11.This may require you to increase the number of lines needed to remove all the heat from the reactors.
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foamy
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by foamy »

astroshak wrote: ↑
Wed Dec 02, 2020 2:18 am
Serenity wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 01, 2020 5:49 pm
Amarula wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 01, 2020 2:06 pm
 each heat exchanger feeds two turbines directly
That's nice for convenience and makes for nice builds, but the second turbine won't run fully. It's also possible to put a number of heat exchangers in a row and then all their turbines in line after them. Just don't interconnect water or steam lines. If you give fluids a choice about where to go that just causes a mess and some parts won't run properly. You can give each such row its own water supply. One offshore pump can supply 12 exchangers, which goes with 20 turbines
Not quite. If you attempt that, then you will find that one Heat Exchanger won’t run fully.

Each Heat Exchanger wants 103 water/sec. One Offshore Pump can only supply 1200 water/sec, so you wind up being 36 water/sec short (1200 instead of 1236 water/sec).

The options are to use multiple Offshore Pumps per row of Heat Exchangers (which, coincidentally, allows you to chain together more than just 12 in a line, potentially 23 in a line with two Offshore Pumps feeding them), OR to shorten the line of Heat Exchangers from 12 to 11.This may require you to increase the number of lines needed to remove all the heat from the reactors.
97.5% utilization on the heat exchanger line is perfectly acceptable, and avoids a lot of hassle with your output piping as well. Tiles properly for a 2xN, too, which an 11-row will not.
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Serenity
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Serenity »

astroshak wrote: ↑
Wed Dec 02, 2020 2:18 am
 Not quite. If you attempt that, then you will find that one Heat Exchanger won’t run fully.
In other builds we accept that a whole turbine will only run with a much smaller fraction. So why is one partial heat exchanger a problem now? When I mentioned the thing with the second turbine not running I wasn't really criticizing it. I've done that. It's fine, but just something one should be aware of.

It's a non-issue. And partially running machines are common in a lot of places
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Amarula
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Amarula »

astroshak wrote: ↑
Wed Dec 02, 2020 2:18 am
 Not quite. If you attempt that, then you will find that one Heat Exchanger won’t run fully.
Very true. In my builds I actually put a tank fed by three off-shore pumps (because if you have room for two, you have room for three, so why not) for each line of 24 heat exchangers.
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Amarula
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Amarula »

Serenity wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 01, 2020 5:49 pm
Amarula wrote: ↑
Tue Dec 01, 2020 2:06 pm
 each heat exchanger feeds two turbines directly
That's nice for convenience and makes for nice builds, but the second turbine won't run fully.
Also very true. Not perfect, but good enough: The turbines run up to around 85% capacity which closer than I want to come to running out of power. When I get to 70% or so of capacity, I tend to build another reactor complex. Not that it actually saves me, my Factorio super-power seems to be an infinite ability to find yet another way to run out of power :roll:
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Yoyobuae »

.
Last edited by Yoyobuae on Thu Dec 03, 2020 7:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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foamy
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by foamy »

Yoyobuae wrote: ↑
Wed Dec 02, 2020 9:28 pm
 There's one problem with having entities running at less than max: UPS

An steam turbine running at 85% uses same UPS as one running at 100%. Similar issue with heat exchangers.
Yeah, but if you're running your steam plant flat out, you've already got issues, and I'd much rather a system that can extract all the heat from a reactor albiet with minor non-utilization in the exchangers/turbines than one balanced the other way around. An exact ratio reactor is a difficult beast to achieve and not at all worth the effort.
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Re: trouble with reactor

Post by Khagan »

foamy wrote: ↑
Thu Dec 03, 2020 2:30 am
 I'd much rather a system that can extract all the heat from a reactor albiet with minor non-utilization in the exchangers/turbines than one balanced the other way around.
In principle I agree. The reactors set the maximum sustained average power production, while the turbines set the maximum instantaneous peak power production, and it is clearly sensible to have the latter a little higher than the former. In practice I confess that my standard small and medium nuclear power plant designs have 3% lower turbine capacity than reactor capacity, for reasons of simplicity and symmetry of design. (And if that 3% really matters, then it's well past time to build another power plant anyway!)
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