Perfect Nuclear Cloverleaf v3, Modular 1-4 cores book : 40-480MW, All the bells and whistles

[gGeorg]

Latest Update: Version 3 released. The top post updated.
- better understanding of liquid flows allowed me reduce number of Steam storage tanks from 8 to 4, ( while all the features are unharmed)
- one turbine removed (84 to 83) to reduce overspend steam. This reduce chance of core overheating from highly unlikely to impossible in gameplay. (Although still possible in a lab environment with precisely timed max power consumption peaks for several hours)

[gGeorg]

Looks like there would be space to include fuel cell recycling.

It would. There is a nice (re)procesing added you could download. However, put it inside plant is a bit wierd as it can support many power plants, it looks to me better to have just one.

Also your other idea to add more turbines for peak power was reconsidered. I find out it is better to do oposite, remove one to get "perfect ratio" 83. There is serious reason to do so, overheating. I found out the power plant which uses peak output can suffer overheating issue. More info you find in the top post.

[mrvn]

Looks like there would be space to include fuel cell recycling.

It would. There is a nice (re)procesing added you could download. However, put it inside plant is a bit wierd as it can support many power plants, it looks to me better to have just one.

Also your other idea to add more turbines for peak power was reconsidered. I find out it is better to do oposite, remove one to get "perfect ratio" 83. There is serious reason to do so, overheating. I found out the power plant which uses peak output can suffer overheating issue. More info you find in the top post.

Lets see if I understand the problem correctly: The power consumption is maxed out. So all the turbines run full steam ahead until the steam tank run dry. At that point all heat exchangers run full throttle and all produced steam is consumed. You constantly fuel the reactor. Right?

In that state the reactor then overheats? That means you don't have enough heat exchangers, not enough water or the heat pipes are insufficient somewhere.

[gGeorg]

Looks like there would be space to include fuel cell recycling.

It would. There is a nice (re)procesing added you could download. However, put it inside plant is a bit wierd as it can support many power plants, it looks to me better to have just one.

Also your other idea to add more turbines for peak power was reconsidered. I find out it is better to do oposite, remove one to get "perfect ratio" 83. There is serious reason to do so, overheating. I found out the power plant which uses peak output can suffer overheating issue. More info you find in the top post.

Lets see if I understand the problem correctly: The power consumption is maxed out. So all the turbines run full steam ahead until the steam tank run dry. At that point all heat exchangers run full throttle and all produced steam is consumed. You constantly fuel the reactor. Right?

In that state the reactor then overheats? That means you don't have enough heat exchangers, not enough water or the heat pipes are insufficient somewhere.

First part is correct.
it looks like this:
1. plant is connected to 500MW consumtion.
2. plant start to deiver defalt output (lets assume, no surplus steam at this moment so it is 480MW)
3. plant is disconected of the grid because factory accumulator level. (there are other sources like solars or steam plants, or other nuclears)
4. surplus steam steam is stored in Storage tanks because of no consumption
Now the magic starts
5. plant is connected to grid and starts to deliver peak output, (lets assume 490MW)
6. plant is consuming heat by speed of 480MW / second, but is consuming steam by speed of 490MW / second. It means stock of steam is going down by speed about 200 steam per second (all are rounded raw numbers).
7. Conditions for next power cell are: fuel_ready & 200s_passed & steam_low means, all 3 conditions are valid but heat stored in heatpipes is still there.
8. new cell is inserted e.g. system inserts new cell before the heat of previous cell is fully consumed.
9. power plant is disconected
10. steps 5-9 repeats, so after a while heat in cores&heatppipes accumulates to the 1000C.

More surplus turbines > more peak > bigger difference between consumption of steam vs consumption of heat > leads to overheating and wastefull plant. The speed is important factor, or delta consumption of steam if you are mathematician.

[mrvn]

7. Conditions for next power cell are: fuel_ready & 200s_passed & steam_low means, all 3 conditions are valid but heat stored in heatpipes is still there.
8. new cell is inserted e.g. system inserts new cell before the heat of previous cell is fully consumed.

If you have enough heat exchangers than all the heat from one fuel cell should be consumed in 200s. But I guess I forgot a scenario where that won't be possible. So it's:

- not enough heat exchangers
- not enough water
- not enough heat pipes (don't think that's possible for 2x2 reactors)
- not enough steam tanks

If all the steam tanks get filled up in under 200s then part of the fuel cells get stored as heat if consumption drops to 0.

Lets think through the scenario step by step: If you have extra steam turbines then you could empty all the steam tanks, trigger a refuel and stop consuming power in 200s intervals to get more and more heat stored. To empty the steam tanks you have to consume all the new steam produced, which means the perfect ratio of steam turbines would be all busy, and then some. And you have to do empty the steam tanks in under 200s, the faster the better. To get the tanks empty in under 200s you have to be able to consume all the stored steam with just the extra steam turbines in under 200s. Easy enough to compute how many extra turbines you can safely have from the number of steam tanks.

The reduction from 8 to 4 tanks hurts you there.

[gGeorg]

7. Conditions for next power cell are: fuel_ready & 200s_passed & steam_low means, all 3 conditions are valid but heat stored in heatpipes is still there.
8. new cell is inserted e.g. system inserts new cell before the heat of previous cell is fully consumed.

You didnt catch the trick. Plant gets grid-On/Off. That negates 200s condition. When plant is disconnected, it fills steam tanks.
It also gives an extra time for fuel burning 200s. Then, fuell cell is depleted but heat is stored in pipes and cores, they cant be processed into steam because tanks are full and plant is disconnected.

At this moment, plant connect to grid again, quickly consume steam in storages (becouse of peak output) and trigger insertion of new cell. Get noticed, heat is still stored in cores and heatpipes. This is the moment when heat builds up.

This process repeats, for example because of day/night cycle, so heat goes up and up to 1000C.

It is not about shortage of anything you named. It is oposite, it is peak consumption of steam creates problem.

[mrvn]

7. Conditions for next power cell are: fuel_ready & 200s_passed & steam_low means, all 3 conditions are valid but heat stored in heatpipes is still there.
8. new cell is inserted e.g. system inserts new cell before the heat of previous cell is fully consumed.

You didnt catch the trick. Plant gets grid-On/Off. That negates 200s condition. When plant is disconnected, it fills steam tanks.
It also gives an extra time for fuel burning 200s. Then, fuell cell is depleted but heat is stored in pipes and cores, they cant be processed into steam because tanks are full and plant is disconnected.

At this moment, plant connect to grid again, quickly consume steam in storages (becouse of peak output) and trigger insertion of new cell. Get noticed, heat is still stored in cores and heatpipes. This is the moment when heat builds up.

This process repeats, for example because of day/night cycle, so heat goes up and up to 1000C.

It is not about shortage of anything you named. It is oposite, it is peak consumption of steam creates problem.

No, no. I got that trick.

The part I'm disagreeing about is "quickly consume steam in storages", more specifically the "quickly" part. The whole scenario relies on the fact that you have too much heat. You have all that stored heat so the heat exchangers are all ready to work. If you only consume the normal 480MW output all the used steam gets replaced by new steam, which balances out and the steam tank remain full. For the steam tanks to actually become empty you have to overdraw power, get those additional steam turbines working.

Let say you have 4 extra steam turbines. That means you can produce an extra 23.28MW at the cost of 240 steam/s that the heat exchangers can't replace. With 4 tanks == 100k steam it takes 416 seconds to drain them. Your "low steam" threshold is probably not 0, say it's 50k. Then it takes 208 seconds to drain the tanks to "low steam" levels. 208 seconds with all the heat exchangers working all out. It takes 200s of the heat exchangers working fully to convert the heat from one set of fuel cells into steam. So for 200 seconds you work on the stored heat from one set of fuel cells and then for 8 seconds you lower the stored heat before a refuel will be triggered.

So instead of raising the store heat you actually end up lowering the stored heat. With just 4 extra turbines the "quickly" in "quickly consume steam in storages" is just not there. If you had 8 extra turbines then it would only take 104 seconds to reach "low steam" levels and you would have the scenario you describe.

The math tells me that for every steam tank above the "low steam" level you can have 2 extra steam turbines. If that doesn't work then somewhere there must be an error.

[mmmPI]

Latest Update: Version 3 released. The top post updated.
- better understanding of liquid flows allowed me reduce number of Steam storage tanks from 8 to 4, ( while all the features are unharmed)
- one turbine removed (84 to 83) to reduce overspend steam. This reduce chance of core overheating from highly unlikely to impossible in gameplay. (Although still possible in a lab environment with precisely timed max power consumption peaks for several hours)

I have tested the V3 and here are some feedback :

The first test was done with 50 beacons connected to the power pole next to the power switch on the 480MW version. This representing a consumption of 24.3MW with only 5 MJ of buffer. This is lab environment .

1)The thing that was problematic to me was the notification all the time. Because in the test setup the 5MJ of the single accumulator was depleted in like 10 to 15 second (eyeballing numbers) which cause the power plant to turn on/off on/off and trigger the notification "power plant is online" continuously.

2)I forget to pipe the water input in the tank and i didn't notice which makes me think there could be a notification for the water in the water tank. But at the same time maybe it's not a good idea because notifications are annoying

3) i increased the number of beacon to 700 still with 1 accumulator and found that the beacon had not enough power because the power switch cut too frequently.

4) i added accumulator during a period of low power, this means the accumulator connected to the power switch had MORE charge than my other accumulator. And it made the matter worse because the power switch never allowed my other accumulator to charge, as soon as the one connected to the switch had 50% charge, then the grid are separated, and the other new accumulators run low on charge and are never allowed to catch up.

Condition were 700 beacon and 35 accumulator when this loop occur I had to remove the speaker .

otherwise it make sense to remove turbine for the situation you describe since 200 has passed , if steam is low then fuel is inserted no matter temperature. If you drain steam too fast, heat inserter have backlog work to do and the heat is wasted. Adding another heat exchanger could help make sure new cell are inserted only when temperature is low and not just steam due to overdrain on steam compared to steam production. Otherwise maybe stop the counter when power plant is off grid ?

i think the more important problem is the throughput of the 1 accumulator used to trigger the power switch, it drain too slow when you don't have enough accumulator and then things start running out of energy because the accumulator can only provide 300kw it would be required to discharge faster, output more than 300kw if you have 70% consumption of power it shows this is what cause point 1 3 and 4. point 2 is just me

[gGeorg]

The first test was done with 50 beacons connected to the power pole next to the power switch on the 480MW version. This representing a consumption of 24.3MW with only 5 MJ of buffer. This is lab environment .

1)The thing that was problematic to me was the notification all the time. Because in the test setup the 5MJ of the single accumulator was depleted in like 10 to 15 second (eyeballing numbers) which cause the power plant to turn on/off on/off and trigger the notification "power plant is online" continuously.

One accumulator is sensor. Such sensor can be overloaded. Recommend to read section
" 2. Connecting power plant to grid and Wasteless"
especially part
" It works very well in case your battery output is at least similar to your factory consumption. Otherwise, batteries will fluctuate quickly up&down with possible brownouts.
So, make sure your battery fields are large enough,
OR
set SR latch OFF (Output:) to E>100%. This way power plant will be online always."

Perhaps you can advice me how to make it more durable against a user ?

otherwise it make sense to remove turbine for the situation you describe since 200 has passed , if steam is low then fuel is inserted no matter temperature. If you drain steam too fast, heat inserter have backlog work to do and the heat is wasted. Adding another heat exchanger could help make sure new cell are inserted only when temperature is low and not just steam due to overdrain on steam compared to steam production. Otherwise maybe stop the counter when power plant is off grid ?

Stop a counter is interesting idea, so you postpone one condition. Hmmm, I can give it a try. Measure heat is an option, but for different plant. It requires specific layout so it allows make controls based on level of heat, not steam. I have this plant in my mind for half a year.

i think the more important problem is the throughput of the 1 accumulator used to trigger the power switch, it drain too slow when you don't have enough accumulator and then things start running out of energy because the accumulator can only provide 300kw it would be required to discharge faster, output more than 300kw if you have 70% consumption of power it shows this is what cause point 1 3 and 4. point 2 is just me

Solution

Thank you for the review

[mrvn]

Make controls based on level of heat, not steam. I have this in my mind. Stop a counter is interesting idea, so you postpone one condition.

You can measure heat directly but you can measure if a heat exchanger is working. And every heat pipe needs a 1°C gradient. So if you add 50 heat pipes and then a heat exchanger and see if it consumes water / produces steam then it will trigger when the point where the heat pipe connects is above 550°C.

Unfortunately the heat pipe also adds in delay. So you can't connect 400 heat pipes to the nuclear reactor to measure when it reaches 900°C. The reactor will overheat way before the heat travels that far. But there is some middle ground one can work with.

[mmmPI]

Perhaps you can advice me how to make it more durable against a user ?

It depends

advice2.jpg (78.72 KiB) Viewed 6165 times

Stop a counter is interesting idea, so you postpone one condition. Hmmm, I can give it a try. Measure heat is an option, but for different plant. Make controls based on level of heat, not steam. I have this plant in my mind for half a year.

in my mind i thought that if you have large excess of heat exchanger, then the steam will never be low when temperature is >500° because the heat is drained very fast. So fuel would never be inserted in a hot reactor. You do not measure heat, you create the condition that heat=>steam is never the bottleneck even with excess turbines. The problem become that during electricity peak consumption, the power plant exceed 480MW for some time and then goes to brown-out/black-out and repeat the cycle. I think it's worse than sometimes little overheating as you have now.

I am not sure stopping counter is a good idea, it is just an idea the risk i see is if there is a drain on the power plant while it is offgrid, but i think that's neglectible given the inner solar and accu. and i'm not sure it's really needed given the present functionning.

I think another "risk" coming from user is messing up the internal grid but there is not much you can do against that

[jimakoskx]

Hello all,
I am new and i didnt want to start a new post ...so (and sorry if i am disturbing-interfering)

here is my setup for a 2x2 nuclear reactor.

I tryed first with a signle network of water and steam paumps (and tanks)
but seemed to be not proper working
so today i made it all 24 heat exchangers SEPERATED .

Seems that works well

[gGeorg]

I am new and i didnt want to start a new post

Hello,
as your design is not related to four leaf or improvement of given desing. It is better to make your own topic. There is plenty space for you no worry.
Thank you for removing your previous post from this topic.

[jimakoskx]

"Thank you for removing your previous post from this topic."

Really Sorry to hear that bad ...news ...from your perpesctive.
Consider my post deleted .
---
and feel free to continue living without it (interfering your precius post)
Just that as from the directives of new era (not burning books etc)
its may be better to not destroy the flow of history by erasing comments etc .
Except ...emergency cases that we can call police,moderators,administrators etc to do the dirty job.
----
So i am again repeating ..considered it erased and sorry.

Really nice game mostly from the development aspect!
Be well and have fun.

[FuryoftheStars]

"Thank you for removing your previous post from this topic."

Really Sorry to hear that bad ...news ...from your perpesctive.
Consider my post deleted .
---
and feel free to continue living without it (interfering your precius post)
Just that as from the directives of new era (not burning books etc)
its may be better to not destroy the flow of history by erasing comments etc .
Except ...emergency cases that we can call police,moderators,administrators etc to do the dirty job.
----
So i am again repeating ..considered it erased and sorry.

Really nice game mostly from the development aspect!
Be well and have fun.

??

You posted in someone else’s thread that was specifically about their design and had specifically requested input on their design in this thread. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for you to post your stuff about your own, unrelated design, in its own thread.

They’re not censoring you. Just asking that you create your own thread for your own project in an effort to keep this one about the original design.

[micah.weihert]

Hello, gGeorg, this nuclear setup is amazing for a super fast quick setup that can grow with you. It is my main nuclear setup for every game I play.

Have you shared this on any of the regular blueprint sites. So I can save it in case this forum gets taken down due to age or pirating.

[gGeorg]

Hello, gGeorg, this nuclear setup is amazing for a super fast quick setup that can grow with you. It is my main nuclear setup for every game I play.

Thank you. I hope it also gives you some ideas how to improve/control your other production.

Have you shared this on any of the regular blueprint sites. So I can save it in case this forum gets taken down due to age or pirating.

This forum is my only place to contribute to Factorio. I shared the Blueprint as a file, so you can download it and save it whenever you need. Although I think that this forum will survive longer than MS One Drive

[engineersmurf]

Hi gGeorg,

thank you for the blueprint. I am currently playing with Space Exploration mod. This mod changes the efficiency of solar panels e.g. they are only 30% effective. This can lead to the reactor logic / pumps running out of power. The reactor only needs solar/Accumulator for the first start, after that you have steam - e.g. my work around is extracting some steam into a tank and connecting a turbine to the pump/logic pole network, thus is has become independent of the solar efficiency.

[gGeorg]

thank you for the blueprint.

You are welcome.

I am currently playing with Space Exploration mod. This mod changes the efficiency of solar panels e.g. they are only 30% effective. - e.g. my work around is extracting some steam into a tank and connecting a turbine to the pump/logic pole network, thus is has become independent of the solar efficiency.

your workaround made independent internal power dependent again.
Not very smart move. I would rather add 2 x more panels to offset mod specifics. So instead of 3 panels in there will 9 panels. I think there is enough space inside the square, to keep foot print small.