0.15 Reactor Ratio

[Onarwen]

So first time posting, even though i have 300+ hours game time according to steam.

TLDR: Heat Exchangers X 1.72 = Steam Turbines, rounded up.

Decided to go about the ratio a little differently. Focused on Heat Exchangers to Steam Turbines and then did a few experiments. I did this after realizing most people will be adding additional nuclear power over time, so will ask that question “how many more Heat Exchangers and Steam Turbines do I add again?”
Originally I thought that the ratio was 1.6 turbines to Heat Exchangers, how wrong I was ( I blame youtube video). The real ratio is 1.72, I realized this mistake when I designed a 1 GW power plant and could add more turbines without loseing perfomance.

Note that all of these tests are using the Creative Mode Mod passive energy drain to test at full loads. Still the numbers could be useful.

Amount of Heat Exchangers is based on reactors and the neighbor bonus. If anyone does not already know that is 4 per reactor, + 100%, 200%, 300% (400% is possible but requires manual loading). Heat Exchangers always go in multiples of 4. eg 4, 8(100%), 12(200%), 16(300%)
To supply all these Heat Exchangers with water you will need about 1 water pump per 10 Heat Exchangers.

H = Heat Exchanger
ST = Steam Turbine

4H x 1.72 = 6.88 ST
8H x 1.72 = 13.76 ST
16H x 1.72 = 27.52 ST
32H x 1.72 = 55.04 ST
Using that math we get: 112H x 1.72 = 192.64 ST (193 ST x 5.8 = 1,119MW)
I got my results by taking the amount of turbines at 100%, then adding the performance of this turbine I have selected. 26/60 = 0.43 (43%). 192.43 / 112 = 1.72 (rounded up)

[impetus maximus]

you have to wire the two inserters to one another with a red, or green wire. it's a sloppy and risky way of doing it.
if the crate/belt loading the fuel is empty while the empty exits, it won't load the full fuel cell when it becomes available.

i have a double combinator solution that works. anyone PM me with any further questions regarding this.

BTW welcome to the forms bralex

[Aeternus]

Interesting. So pre-heating water with normal boilers makes the system go exactly 10:4:10 on boiler/heat exchanger/turbine, as the turbines would need only 4MW each with the pre-heated steam... Heat pipes suffer no loss in transmission, but heat propagates slowly over large distances, requiring more time for the system to become saturated. But that makes very wide setups possible.

Boiler (Chemical):
- Consumes 3.6 MW to produce 1.8MW in steam
- Heats to 165dgr

Heat Exchanger:
- Consumes heat to produce 10 MW in steam
- Heats to 500dgr

Turbine:
- Consumes 500dgr steam
- Produces 5.8 MW in power

So 1.8 MW from the Boiler, 4 MW from the Heat Exchanger if you go with the hybrid power production.
The ratio for this setup is: 1 Pump / 20 Boilers / 20 Turbines / 8 Heat Exchangers. This draws 80MW from reactors and is stable under full load, but requires a steady supply of chemical fuel (I use solid fuel on a blue belt main bus in this example - but frankly, a red belt would more then suffice as a main bus). Screenshot below shows the setup (80MW draw, this pattern can be halved for a single reactor setup) - but the whole thing can easily be cloned to the other side of the heat pipe if your reactors can handle more oomph. Ignore the fuel being requestor chest flown in - I was cobbling proof of concept together
The example in the screenshot produces 116 MW and is stable in doing so.



[Edit] Added bonus: This can serve as a garbage disposal for unwanted Wood

[MeduSalem]

Interesting. So pre-heating water with normal boilers makes the system go exactly 10:4:10 on boiler/heat exchanger/turbine, as the turbines would need only 4MW each with the pre-heated steam... Heat pipes suffer no loss in transmission, but heat propagates slowly over large distances, requiring more time for the system to become saturated. But that makes very wide setups possible.

Boiler (Chemical):
- Consumes 3.6 MW to produce 1.8MW in steam
- Heats to 165dgr

Heat Exchanger:
- Consumes heat to produce 10 MW in steam
- Heats to 500dgr

Turbine:
- Consumes 500dgr steam
- Produces 5.8 MW in power

So 1.8 MW from the Boiler, 4 MW from the Heat Exchanger if you go with the hybrid power production.
The ratio for this setup is: 1 Pump / 20 Boilers / 20 Turbines / 8 Heat Exchangers. This draws 80MW from reactors and is stable under full load, but requires a steady supply of chemical fuel (I use solid fuel on a blue belt main bus in this example - but frankly, a red belt would more then suffice as a main bus). Screenshot below shows the setup (80MW draw, this pattern can be halved for a single reactor setup) - but the whole thing can easily be cloned to the other side of the heat pipe if your reactors can handle more oomph. Ignore the fuel being requestor chest flown in - I was cobbling proof of concept together
The example in the screenshot produces 116 MW and is stable in doing so.

Thanks for explaining it in more detail... now I understand why the hybrid solution actually works... I've been using it for a few days now and it just... worked without me knowing why exactly, except that I guessed that the exchangers will need less heat from the reactors to warm the water, hence why a heater can heat more water, which then supports more turbines.

[Edit] Added bonus: This can serve as a garbage disposal for unwanted Wood

There's another bonus:

boilers + exchangers + switch.jpg (325.76 KiB) Viewed 10941 times

Using pumps and setting simple circuit network conditions you can make a switch... which allows you to alternate between using cold water in the exchangers or pre-heated steam from the boilers.

The pumps are hooked up to one of the storage tanks and I turn the Cold Water pump on when the tank has more than 15000 units of 500 Degree Steam inside. At the same time the pre-heated 165 Degree steam pump gets turned off.

So if the power usage rises, then the storage tanks will become emptier (due to 10 Turbines trying to draw from only 4 Heat Exchangers while they only support ~6.9 Turbines when heating up from 15 Degree water)... and then eventually it will hit the theshold after which the cold water pump gets turned off again and the pre-heated steam pump gets turned on again until it rises above the threshold again. Rinse and repeat.

Saves you a lot of chemical fuel in low power scenarios... by simply switching to cold water and running solely from the Heat of the Nuclear reactors.



I hope they don't ever decide to make Water and Steam seperate fluids because then it might not work anymore due to fluid collision problems.

[eX_ploit]

Can somebody explain what's the point of preheating the steam with coal? Isn't it better to just build bigger nuclear reactor in that space to get even better efficiency on uranium(which is already way better than coal)?

Also on all of the screenshots that people are posting I see them covering nuclear reactor completely on all sides with heat pipes. That is completely pointless, and just wastes resources and heat(slows down the first run of the reactor, before it's hot enough).

I managed to make a fully automatic fuel injection control for my reactor that ensures several things:
1. Fuel cells are divided evenly between all reactors(for times when you are not yet swimming in U-235).
2. All reactors are fed at the exact same time, and only if they all have fuel waiting in the chest.
3. Reactors are fed only when I run low on steam.
4. Reactors are fed only when they already used up the fuel from the last feeding.(I used combinators to make a timer that finishes at the same time as reactors)


Also, as you can see I have less Steam Turbines than I can attach, but that's completely fine since my base doesn't consume that much power anyway, so I can spend less nuclear fuel.

[doc776@gmail.com]

Fiddled around with that dual-reactor-core setup and got a very good compact thing going with easy access for refueling. If you are in ahurry can always plop them side by side instead of figuring out the perfect 4 core setup.

- Uses 1920/s of water so use 2 off shore pumps, i like to have one for top and bottom seperate.
- Easy acess on top for refueling and stuff.
- 159-160MW, seems it cant make up its mind
- with 4 extra turbines gone from basic safe design, the steam sits very close to nominal maximum input/output


blueprint because i am nice:

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

[Aeternus]

Can somebody explain what's the point of preheating the steam with coal? Isn't it better to just build bigger nuclear reactor in that space to get even better efficiency on uranium(which is already way better than coal)?

Also on all of the screenshots that people are posting I see them covering nuclear reactor completely on all sides with heat pipes. That is completely pointless, and just wastes resources and heat(slows down the first run of the reactor, before it's hot enough).

The ratio of buildings to use just lines up perfectly - it's for those of us who are OCD about using every structure at 100% capacity. I like the idea of switching between direct water and preheated based on load Methu, didn't think of that myself! Fluid collision shouldn't be an issue though, because the fluid gets consumed at the endpoints (the heat exchangers) so there'll be nothing left in the pipes. It'd just take a moment for the fluid type to change.

This opens up even more possibilities. The turbines can be fed directly from the chemical boilers (but they will operate at a very low performance maximum) in case of a nuclear fuel shortage.

[MeduSalem]

Can somebody explain what's the point of preheating the steam with coal? Isn't it better to just build bigger nuclear reactor in that space to get even better efficiency on uranium(which is already way better than coal)?

Well, there are several reasons...

• I've been a steam-guy before 0.15... using 2:28:20 design for a 500MW plant... so I had a lot of boilers/steam engines sitting around and the entire backend for producing solid fuel/rocket fuel etc. I didn't feel like tearing all that down since I spent a lot of time on all of that. So the upgrade happened naturally... I just removed the Steam Engines and instead hooked up the Heat Exchangers and Steam Turbines instead after seeing that someone else did that too.
• There's also the possibility of using both systems as a backup for one another while integrated into one build (like I did in the screenshot I showed in my previous post).
  • So if you run out of Uranium (highly unlikely with Enrichment, but still possible depending on map settings) then it automatically reverts to using the boilers, skipping the heat exchangers.
  • If you are short on Coal/Oil but instead have a lot of U-235 around then you may skip the boilers.
  • And if you want you can use both together for more power output to cover the spikes in the power consumption since the boilers are much more responsive than the Nuclear Reactors are.
• You can use your depleted Oil Wells and turn the stuff into Solid fuel which is then used to pre-heat the water... and that Oil output is steady and infinite.
• Coal is also abundant because of how there is only one major consumer: Plastic Bars. So I had the idea of abusing the Productivity Module Crafting Cascade on the Coal Liquification up to Rocket Fuel and burn Rocket Fuel in my Boilers... which can be seen here in the thread of iceman_1212 who made a test setup inspired by my idea. So another way to gain additional power if you want to get rid of some nasty Coal patches.
• You can burn excess wood as written by Aeternus.
• More beautiful ratios (per 40MW Reactor power):
  

  Code: Select all

  Offshore Pump = 0.5
  Boilers = 10
  Heat Exchangers = 4
  Steam Turbines = 10

  Which in my opinion leads to neater designs, but that is a matter of taste.

That said, it is completely valid to run the Nuclear Plant without boilers to pre-heat the water. It's just an optional thing if one is into that kind of toy stuff.

Also on all of the screenshots that people are posting I see them covering nuclear reactor completely on all sides with heat pipes. That is completely pointless, and just wastes resources and heat(slows down the first run of the reactor, before it's hot enough).

Well the Heatpipes are a bit buggy currently... they might work only at a reduced performance depending on the direction you dragged them. If you dragged them away from the reactors to the Exchangers then they work fine, but if you placed them by bots or in an otherwise random order or starting from the exchangers to the reactors then they might not reach their full potential because... yeah... they are weird and probably buggy:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=44972

The ratio of buildings to use just lines up perfectly - it's for those of us who are OCD about using every structure at 100% capacity. I like the idea of switching between direct water and preheated based on load Methu, didn't think of that myself! Fluid collision shouldn't be an issue though, because the fluid gets consumed at the endpoints (the heat exchangers) so there'll be nothing left in the pipes. It'd just take a moment for the fluid type to change.

This opens up even more possibilities. The turbines can be fed directly from the chemical boilers (but they will operate at a very low performance maximum) in case of a nuclear fuel shortage.

Yeah I'm a bit OCD as well. xD

Also yes, it is possible to feed the turbines directly from the chemical boilers... would be just one more Pump hooked up to a circuit network condition... I even had that pump already in place (the middle one in the picture below) but I removed it while fiddling around with the layout.

Basically it shortcircuited the Boiler output directly to the Exchanger Output pipes which in turn goes to the Turbines (which are to the right outside the picture).

If looking closely it can be seen here:

pump.png (355.09 KiB) Viewed 10889 times

The picture is crap because the original was completely zoomed out, so I had to rescale it, which is why it is that pixelated.

So the setup had three modes of operation:

1. 15°C Water -> Boilers -> 165°C Steam -> Steam Turbines (3.1 fully utilized)
2. 15°C Water -> Heat Exchangers -> 500°C Steam -> Steam Turbines (6.9 fully utilized)
3. 15°C Water -> Boilers -> 165°C Steam -> Heat Exchangers -> 500°C Steam -> Steam Turbines (3.1+6.9 = 10 fully utilized)

And most commonly it cycled between 2 and 3, depending on how much excess Steam there is in the Storage Tanks. Most of the time it remained in mode 2, because if the Steam Turbines are under-utilized due to low Power Demand then the 500°C starts to stockpile in the Tanks, which causes to switch to Mode 2 by Circuit Network.

So my 2x3 Reactor setup has a basic 800MW, but together with the pre-heating boilers it is able to output a steady 1160MW at peak performance, which is almost a boost of 1,5x.

[Aeternus]

I like the idea Medu, but your setup and screenies aren't easily serializable. Here's the same idea compressed into a 10/4/10 boiler/exchanger/turbine unit (did 2 in the screenshot to fully utilize the water pump too)


I use burner inserters because for 95% of the time, the chemical preheater will be bypassed anyway. Burner inserters do not draw any power when idle. And fuel themselves as needed.
The pumps that switch between preheated steam and water are on the red circuit. The switch is made once the red circuit detects water in the 500dgr steam tank falls below 15k. Note that I'm using another storage tank inbetween - it takes a while for water in that tank to start to be heated. This system reacts slowly to changes in load, but that's fine since the 500dgr steam tank can sustain that 36MW extra draw for the time it takes for the preheater tank to heat up. Once load decreases, the still hot water in the tank will help refill the 500dgr steam buffer more quickly.
There is another bypass between the tanks. I've set those pumps to activate if the water level in the 500dgr tank falls below 1k - which assumes that the heat exchangers aren't working for some reason. That bypasses the heat exchangers and feeds the turbines with 165dgr steam.
The double pipes between the chemical heaters in the middle are needed - without those two pumps in parallel you run into a cap in flowrate in the pipes. One pump cannot feed 4 heat exchangers.

Probably should also put an override in that if the fuel belt is empty, the preheater will never activate... A simple read belt -> decider (everything = 0) -> output 20k water on the red circuit should do the trick.

The green circuit connects to all the pumps but not to the tanks. Can be used to manually trigger switches plant-wide if you connect all of them on it.

[Edit]
Edited the screeny - I threw in a couple of Combinators to better control what switches when. The belt near the chemical boilers is read - if the belt is empty (Everything =0), there's a fuel shortage and I output blue on the red circuit.
The combinators near the turbines: Right one triggers when Water > 15K, outputting Blue to the red circuit. Left one triggers when Water <1K, outputting White to the red circuit.
The pumps that switch between preheated steam and plain water read the Blue signal. If >0, water is selected. If blue <=0 the preheated steam is selected.
The pumps that bypass the heat exchangers activate on White > 0.

This allows for easier manual (or alternative automatic) switching over the Green circuit simply by using those signals instead of mucking around with water values.

String for this array (using 10 turbines):

Code: Select all

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

[Edit2] Realized too late that having the heatpipe where it is isn't convenient. Made a slight modification by adding 2 more tanks to the end of the turbines, crossconnecting them with underground pipes. That frees up room between the turbines all the way to the heat exchanger - I run the heat pipes that way, which brings the input for the heat pipes behind the turbines (where you usually want your reactors). That allows you to basically put a row of reactors at the far side of the turbines. Since reactors themselves also act as heat pipes internally, it's not needed to run heatpipes to the reactors furthest away from the turbines - they'll handle that internally.

[Istrebitel_MIG-31]

I assembled such a scheme.

[impetus maximus]

rather than use boilers to preheat the steam, i'm using steam engines when i don't have enough steam to add a turbine.
this lets me max out the heat exchangers/offshore pump.

[Braidcutter]

I've tried just about everything I can think of to get the loading inserter to work to load one fuel. I never do see an option to actually set the stack size, what exactly does this setting do?

I had trouble with this too... been fussing over it for a while.

1. Timer should start and proc a fuel load command while run condition is true.

2. Timer should not load another fuel for 12000 ticks, even if run condition flickers momentarily or turns off for a minute

3. Timer should reset so long as run condition is true.

After I concocted a 6 plus combinator monstrosity that still misbehaved, I decided to fix it for good.

[impetus maximus]

guys start a new subject for loading fuel cells. this thread is about reactor ratios.

[malventano]

• Reactors are always at 100% fuel consumption, unlike boilers, so oversizing could be incredibly expensive for a small base.

I think this might be a bug, because if you let the reactors run out of fuel, the temperatures drop proportionally to steam/power demand. I submitted a bug report just in case it actually us a bug and not just some aspect of realism not yet implemented.

• I had one reactor stuck at 983°C even with 0 W of load. Seemed like something was draining off heat. After rebuilding it went away. Weird.

I ran into this same issue. A reactor with another reactor on one side and heat pipes on the other side was sitting 20C below the temperature of the items on either side of it (other reactor 1000C, heat pipes 999C (no load). Replacing the reactors fixed the issue. Not sure if this may have been corrected with one of the 0.15.x updates and replacing after the patch fixed it, or if it is some sort of bug that has existed throughout. I also had dead-end sections of heat pipes with temperatures going up and down as you went down the string. Rebuilding those heat pipe sections also corrected the issue, but those heat pipes were first laid down on 0.15.5, so perhaps you can only completely fix the issue if you tear down / rebuild all of the connected items.
*edit* apparently placement order of thermal items is currently an issue.

[Rhamphoryncus]

Fluid collision shouldn't be an issue though, because the fluid gets consumed at the endpoints (the heat exchangers) so there'll be nothing left in the pipes. It'd just take a moment for the fluid type to change.

There's no risk of fluid collision anyway. Steam is still the water type, it just renders as steam when over 100°C.

Edit: They're not entirely the same. Steam engines and turbines won't allow water under 100°C to enter them.

Edit 2: Boilers will refuse to output steam if their input is over 165°C. You can get very close though.

[_Hertz_]

P.S. Here is small spreadsheet that i quickly made for myself. Hopefully it will help someone to decide which setup to efficiently use in his/her particular factory.

The attachment Nuclear Reactor values.PNG is no longer available

There are few assumptions in the spreadsheet: Heat exchangers output 103 steam/s (which i didn't test in the game); energy production of 1 centrifuge rounded to 40 MW (from what it seems to be 39,964 MW) in order to get convenient numbers; calculations for resources use are ignoring all production bonuses and stuff like that and the fact that you can get U-235 from uranium ore processing because: 1) i didn't know exact numbers of getting U-235/U-238 from processing; 2) it was made just to give the basic idea of how much resources to expect to be used, not for exact calculations;

I have used your spreadsheet to create an 8 reactor setup. This plant requires a line of uranium ore from the south, a line of iron plate from the north and 12 pumps from the west. The extra turbines are for power spikes to consume the steam in the storage tanks. I'm not a big fan of relying on logistic robots but it simplified the design here, plus they can run on their own network. The only thing left to do is add a circuit that turns on the inserters putting fuel into the reactors when one of the steam tanks is less than half full. The buffer of the steam tanks will take the energy produced by the 8 reactors x 7 fuel (it seems to like to put in to the reactor.) This will end up wasting no fuel and will scale from very small electricity consumption to maxing out the plant.

EDIT: after doing a bit of math, 1 unit of water takes 97kJ to raise from 15C to 500C, and a fuel cell is 8GJ. Thus, a single cell produces 82474 units of steam. With the circuit condition noted above that would mean 56 fuel cells go into the system when the steam tanks reach half full, producing 4618544 steam. That would require 4618544 steam / 12500 units in a half tank or ~370 steam tanks total as a buffer. That back portion of steam tanks needs to be 7 wide instead of just 4.

[JimiQ]

I have trouble with math here. I came up with ratio of 1 pump : 20 boilers : 2 reactors (or rather one with 100% bonus) : 12 heat exchangers : 20 steam turbines.
Math behind this: 1 pump extracts 1200 water/s which lines perfectly with 20 boilers since each uses 60 water. They produce 36 MW of power. 2 reactors produce 80 MW of power. 12 heat exchangers use somenthing over 1200 water (or rather steam in this case) and 120 MW of heat (80 + 36 = 116). This is perfectly used by 20 turbines.

Edit: spelling, typos

[Nemoricus]

Every 40 MW is perfectly consumed by 4 heat exchangers. For a 100% bonus, it's 8 exchangers per reactor.

[Aru]

If anyone cares, I calculated that each ore yields 507.0 MJ with full enriching and reprocessing, and no neighbor bonus.

[Aeternus]

Hertz, reactors function as heat pipes internally. You could omit the heat pipes that go around them - and even squish your reactor cluster a little west to that open area there as a result, to condense your setup further.