Way simpler than it sounds. For 2x1 and 2x2, lay out a grid of 33 or 193 heat pipes next to each reactor respectively. For 2x3 up to ~2x16, put 193 heat pipes next to the end four reactors, and 257 next to the rest. In all these cases, use a single heat exchanger and two turbines. Once you hit ~2x17, you'll have to add another heat exchanger (and the appropriate ratio of turbines) for every ~17 rows, rounding up. Each exchanger should be attached directly to a reactor and as close to the center of its group of reactors as possible, to maximize the flow out of the heatpipes into the heat exchanger. Use a system very similar to mine to manage fuel based on measuring steam in... just one tank, per exchanger really. Within the full 200 second burn cycle, the heat exchanger will produce 20.6k steam. After that point, there's no new heat entering the system, so the reactors (and heatpipes) are cooling from the exchanger producing steam. Start the reactors again when steam hits ~4k.mrvn wrote:Challenge: Design a 2xN nuclear reactor with the minimum number of heat exchangers. It must never waste fuel.
Under the right conditions (demand > reactor capacity, because you're supplementing with solar or simply need to scale up), yes you can. With my "fuel timer" system I achieved 100% fuel utilization under any load with 2x1 reactors, 17 exchangers and 29 turbines. I deliberately did +1 exchanger and rounded the turbine ratio up so that if there was enough demand to push the turbines to full-tilt, the reactors would be incapable of reaching 1000C even at the full 100% duty cycle. The system will still work with more front-loaded ratios, but then the reactors will stop short of 100% duty cycle when the turbines or heat exchangers are overloaded, leaving some reactor capacity on the proverbial table.mrvn wrote:What it does mean though is that you can never run your reactor at 100%. But if your goal is to run it at 50% then you only need half the heat exchangers. Personally I would build enough heat exchangers to run full throttle and then have them idle 50% of the time. Because soon enough you will need 60% power output.
I ment 100% duty cycle there, not 100% fuel utilization.roothorick wrote:Under the right conditions (demand > reactor capacity, because you're supplementing with solar or simply need to scale up), yes you can. With my "fuel timer" system I achieved 100% fuel utilization under any load with 2x1 reactors, 17 exchangers and 29 turbines. I deliberately did +1 exchanger and rounded the turbine ratio up so that if there was enough demand to push the turbines to full-tilt, the reactors would be incapable of reaching 1000C even at the full 100% duty cycle. The system will still work with more front-loaded ratios, but then the reactors will stop short of 100% duty cycle when the turbines or heat exchangers are overloaded, leaving some reactor capacity on the proverbial table.mrvn wrote:What it does mean though is that you can never run your reactor at 100%. But if your goal is to run it at 50% then you only need half the heat exchangers. Personally I would build enough heat exchangers to run full throttle and then have them idle 50% of the time. Because soon enough you will need 60% power output.
