2.4 GW Nuclear Reactor

[Rapier31]

I've created an OCD friendly 2.4 GW Nuclear Reactor that is stable so far. It has controlled loading of 1 fuel cell for each reactor with 6 combinators. There is also interconnected storage tanks for the steam which haven't yet gotten full, so no power is wasted here(so far). The ratios are relatively exact with the exception of extra turbines to add some additional ooomph from the tanks if I actually need it. I've got it set to turn on when the Steam drops below a certain level, so its functioning as a backup power supply at the moment, but can be implemented to be the primary power source for the factory.

I'm attaching the blueprint string. The reactor needs to be primed with 1 fuel cell in each reactor to get it going.

Editing this thread to include updated Blueprint for 5.10 in OP along with some pic cleanup.

[Rapier31]

Here is a closeup of the combinators that control the reactor.

[Rapier31]

So, the combinator logic was a bit off, and I've removed some of the extra turbines, as it wasn't working the way it was intended, so I may have been a little preemptive in uploading this....

[Rapier31]

After some further tweaking and testing, the reactor actually is working as intended, except that its not liking being the backup pulse generator. It would be better to run this as the primary power source for the factory. I've been watching it at 1.8 GW load for awhile and it works just fine. The problem I was seeing was that the storage tanks took a little while to fill back up enough to run all the turbines after being depleted when the reactor was in the 'off' cycle. I'm slowly scaling the base up to actually require all of this power, but the tanks still never get completely full, so still no power is being wasted. Can someone please tell me where the blueprint string is in the game files? I've got it in my blueprint library, but I can't find it in the files.

[Dimanper]

After some further tweaking and testing, the reactor actually is working as intended, except that its not liking being the backup pulse generator. It would be better to run this as the primary power source for the factory. I've been watching it at 1.8 GW load for awhile and it works just fine. The problem I was seeing was that the storage tanks took a little while to fill back up enough to run all the turbines after being depleted when the reactor was in the 'off' cycle. I'm slowly scaling the base up to actually require all of this power, but the tanks still never get completely full, so still no power is being wasted. Can someone please tell me where the blueprint string is in the game files? I've got it in my blueprint library, but I can't find it in the files.

Hi, Rapier31.
Do you mean where you can get the blueprint string?

f6a.png (500.36 KiB) Viewed 11937 times

And some tips about your design:
1) You need to build more offshore pumps (1 per 8 heat exchangers opposed to 1 per 10 on the image)
2) You need to build more storage tanks if you want to use reactor as backup energy source (at least 198 storage tanks)
3) You need to build even more storage tanks and turn on reactor only when there is less than some amount of steam(water) in them (like 2500000 steam with 100 extra tanks) if you don't want to wait for reactors to fill back up tanks for all turbines to run after being off.

[Rapier31]

Thank you for the bluestring info. Can't believe I missed that.... As for the water pumps, I read somewhere on here that 1 pump can supply a little over 11 exchangers, so I should be good on the water part of it. I haven't noticed any dips or slowdowns in production of steam. The heat pipes don't get all the way to 1000 degrees either due to the steam production. Extra tanks, I can completely agree with after having watched the outcome of not having enough several times. Also, the controlled loading of the fuel cells seems to work more like an on demand than loading just 1 at a time. I've deduced that it is still fine for the plant however, as the steam tanks still never fill completely, yet I'm still not drawing 100% of this reactor just yet so I guess I'll see how that pans out when i do. I'm running around 1.5 to 1.8 GW's on a regular basis, so it won't be too long before I need to build a second one of these monsters.... Also, I'm going to attach the blueprint string in the OP so I can get some feedback on what could be done better or for people to use it .

[Dimanper]

Thank you for the bluestring info. Can't believe I missed that.... As for the water pumps, I read somewhere on here that 1 pump can supply a little over 11 exchangers, so I should be good on the water part of it. I haven't noticed any dips or slowdowns in production of steam. The heat pipes don't get all the way to 1000 degrees either due to the steam production. Extra tanks, I can completely agree with after having watched the outcome of not having enough several times. Also, the controlled loading of the fuel cells seems to work more like an on demand than loading just 1 at a time. I've deduced that it is still fine for the plant however, as the steam tanks still never fill completely, yet I'm still not drawing 100% of this reactor just yet so I guess I'll see how that pans out when i do. I'm running around 1.5 to 1.8 GW's on a regular basis, so it won't be too long before I need to build a second one of these monsters.... Also, I'm going to attach the blueprint string in the OP so I can get some feedback on what could be done better or for people to use it .

Offshore pump pumps 1200 water/sec, pipes can handle 1200 fluid/sec only over <= 14 pipes and 900 fluid/sec over <= 224 pipes. Your setup has more than 14 pipes between offshore pumps and heat exchangers and 1 heat exchanger needs a little bit more than 103 water/sec, therefore you need to keep 1 pump per 8 heat exchangers if there are more than 14 pipes between them, or exchangers will not be able to run at full capacity and so the whole system will output less than it should at max demand (2095 MW vs 2400 MW in your example).

[Rapier31]

Offshore pump pumps 1200 water/sec, pipes can handle 1200 fluid/sec only over <= 14 pipes and 900 fluid/sec over <= 224 pipes. Your setup has more than 14 pipes between offshore pumps and heat exchangers and 1 heat exchanger needs a little bit more than 103 water/sec, therefore you need to keep 1 pump per 8 heat exchangers if there are more than 14 pipes between them, or exchangers will not be able to run at full capacity and so the whole system will output less than it should at max demand (2095 MW vs 2400 MW in your example).

I was hoping that I didn't have too many pipes between the pumps and exchangers, but I guess that's not the case, as I have seen the exchangers hover around 170ish water as the reactor is coming up around 2 GW's. Do you think adding a second pump per pipe would suffice, or do i need to do a complete rebuild?

[Dimanper]

I was hoping that I didn't have too many pipes between the pumps and exchangers, but I guess that's not the case, as I have seen the exchangers hover around 170ish water as the reactor is coming up around 2 GW's. Do you think adding a second pump per pipe would suffice, or do i need to do a complete rebuild?

As i said, it's not about that pumps can't handle 10 heat exchangers (which they can, since 1200 / ~103 = ~11,6 > 10), it's about that pipes can't handle 1200 fluid/sec over more than 14 pipes, only 900 fluid/sec, therefore 1 pipe per 8 heat exchangers. So adding more pumps to 1 pipe wouldn't do anything, you need to lay more pipes or move heat exchangers closer to the pumps to have no more than 14 pipes between them and pumps in order to get full 2400 MW output from the system.

[Rapier31]

I was hoping that I didn't have too many pipes between the pumps and exchangers, but I guess that's not the case, as I have seen the exchangers hover around 170ish water as the reactor is coming up around 2 GW's. Do you think adding a second pump per pipe would suffice, or do i need to do a complete rebuild?

As i said, it's not about that pumps can't handle 10 heat exchangers (which they can, since 1200 / ~103 = ~11,6 > 10), it's about that pipes can't handle 1200 fluid/sec over more than 14 pipes, only 900 fluid/sec, therefore 1 pipe per 8 heat exchangers. So adding more pumps to 1 pipe wouldn't do anything, you need to lay more pipes or move heat exchangers closer to the pumps to have no more than 14 pipes between them and pumps in order to get full 2400 MW output from the system.

Complete rebuild, got it. I've already got some ideas to make it work. I'll upload when I'm finished.

[Rapier31]

The attachment Combinators for 2.4 GW reactor.png is no longer available

I was hoping that I didn't have too many pipes between the pumps and exchangers, but I guess that's not the case, as I have seen the exchangers hover around 170ish water as the reactor is coming up around 2 GW's. Do you think adding a second pump per pipe would suffice, or do i need to do a complete rebuild?

As i said, it's not about that pumps can't handle 10 heat exchangers (which they can, since 1200 / ~103 = ~11,6 > 10), it's about that pipes can't handle 1200 fluid/sec over more than 14 pipes, only 900 fluid/sec, therefore 1 pipe per 8 heat exchangers. So adding more pumps to 1 pipe wouldn't do anything, you need to lay more pipes or move heat exchangers closer to the pumps to have no more than 14 pipes between them and pumps in order to get full 2400 MW output from the system.

Complete rebuild, got it. I've already got some ideas to make it work. I'll upload when I'm finished.

I've taken into account your suggestions Dimanper, and I've created this reactor which still has loading controlled to 1 fuel cell at a time and it will work when steam drops to a certain point in the tanks. I've got enough tanks I think as well
I'm attaching the BP string for this new reactor, and this one actually works VERY well. I'll post some pictures. To anyone who wants to build this monster, you'll need to prime each reactor with 1 fuel cell to start it and the combinators should take care of the rest. Just make sure you have enough fuel cells to feed this hungry beast. I've got U-235 fully automated and beaconed with close to 50k in storage, so its no sweat. I still haven't needed the full output of it, but it should output max 2.4 GW's of power at full load.

As a sidenote, the reactor itself has 432 steam turbines. The production pic shows more, but the extra turbines are from my earlier attempt that I haven't deleted just yet. Think I'll keep as a backup for the backup

[Rapier31]

After watching the production and drain cycles of the reactor, I realized that the tanks in the middle were holding steam almost to capacity, yet the fluid mechanics were preventing the outer tanks from filling which was starving the reactor. I removed them and it is finally working at capacity the way it was intended to. Take note that there are 432 turbines in this build which is 20 more than what this reactor can theoretically support. I did this to provide a slight boost to power during high energy drain events. This means that during those situations, the steam will start to drain faster than production, and you'll need to build more solar, steam, or just build another reactor


Updating the BP to include some minor pipe tweaking to better optimize power output.

[Rapier31]

I just realized that there are 80 extra exchangers (20 extra in each quadrant) than the reactor can support for heat. I'll need to do another redesigning session....

[Distelzombie]

I made this nice segment that you can use to build setups.
It has almost perfect ratio and a fuel tank for every heat exchanger. If you make an 8 reactor setup it will end up being 112 heat exchanger, 192 turbines and 112 tanks. This is only half a turbine off from perfect ratio. There would be only 93 tanks required to fit all the steam in made by one fuel cell, but what gives.

Blueprint

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

[Rapier31]

That's very pretty. I'm trying to get a super compact design, that is easily scalable, so I'm not sure if I could make that work, but I'll test it out. I'm almost done with the new setup that has the correct amount of heat exchangers, but it will still have the extra turbines for short power spikes. I also need less tanks, as I've got about double the amount that is needed in the build. I like the performance of the previous build however. My factory is sucking every bit of juice that it supplies and then some. I need another reactor already! I'm thinking of doing a build for a 4.8 GW or greater. That will be an interesting challenge.

[Rapier31]

The redesign has been completed for the correct ratio of heat exchangers to reactors. The design is almost exactly the same as the previous one that I've posted, with some pipe changes. The layout is the same size as well. I will post the BP in the OP alongside the previous BP for the ratio specific among us. I happen to like the previous build as well for the extra steam production and I didn't seem to have any issues keeping the extra exchangers fed with heat, even at full load. That may be due to the load relief from the solar panels during the day. Nonetheless, here is the BP string in the OP along with some pics of the new layout although it is very similar in nature. Please let me know if you like or dislike or if you have any suggestions or requests for a better optimized reactor

[Claudius1729]

Offshore pump pumps 1200 water/sec, pipes can handle 1200 fluid/sec only over <= 14 pipes and 900 fluid/sec over <= 224 pipes. Your setup has more than 14 pipes between offshore pumps and heat exchangers and 1 heat exchanger needs a little bit more than 103 water/sec, therefore you need to keep 1 pump per 8 heat exchangers if there are more than 14 pipes between them, or exchangers will not be able to run at full capacity and so the whole system will output less than it should at max demand (2095 MW vs 2400 MW in your example).

But let's say you have enough offshore pumps, is it possible with electrical pumps along the pipes system to still get enough water over a distance bigger than 14 pipes?

[Dimanper]

Offshore pump pumps 1200 water/sec, pipes can handle 1200 fluid/sec only over <= 14 pipes and 900 fluid/sec over <= 224 pipes. Your setup has more than 14 pipes between offshore pumps and heat exchangers and 1 heat exchanger needs a little bit more than 103 water/sec, therefore you need to keep 1 pump per 8 heat exchangers if there are more than 14 pipes between them, or exchangers will not be able to run at full capacity and so the whole system will output less than it should at max demand (2095 MW vs 2400 MW in your example).

But let's say you have enough offshore pumps, is it possible with electrical pumps along the pipes system to still get enough water over a distance bigger than 14 pipes?

1, 2, 3, 4.

[Claudius1729]

So 0.15 just applied a factor x10 to all liquids, but the mechanics are still valid? Thanks for the links.

[Rapier31]

After the heat pipe changes in the latest update, these reactors still seem to run just fine.