Working TEG Supermatter Engine

[RavingManiac]

Circulators now draw air based on the total volume of the pipe network connected to the input. They also generate some power in the same manner as pipe turbines.

Thermoelectric generators now generate much more power, mostly due to the increase in circulator intake volume.

Supermatter no longer powers radiation collectors, and is tweaked to run at 3000-4000K, with a critical temperature of 5000K. Supermatter will still irradiate mobs.

TEG supermatter engine mapped in. Currently generates ~1MW of power with chamber temperature of 3500K.

Preview

Engine procedure (not necessarily optimal):

• Pump two canisters of N2 into the reactor loop (cyan) and radiator loop (green) each.
• Activate pumps and filters, maximum pressure, etc
• Fire 8-12 shots from the emitter. Temperature and power will take time to increase.
• If supermatter chamber gets too hot, open Emergency Cooling Valves 1 and 2, north and south of the generators respectively. This will stop power generation, but rapidly cool the engine. Close valves to resume operation.

In-game manual updated accordingly.

[Raptor1628]

Hm....me like. Will it be possible to adjust the atmospheric conditions in the Supermatter chamber? And where does the cold loop go? Space in a radiator or to freezers?

[GinjaNinja32]

And where does the cold loop go? Space in a radiator or to freezers?

Look at the picture :P
(it's a radiator)

[Raptor1628]

I may be an idiot that didn't see the link.

[Fox-McCloud]

This is pretty much the premise of Cael's R-UST engine, only it's not as flashy or realistic. In any event, I'd personally tune the engine to be focused around a single TEG and not multiple ones. I realize it's Goon, but their TEG is pretty fun from a gameplay standpoint; it has nigh unlimited potential and starts creating unique effects/colors/sounds when the engine starts getting into ridiculously high power output levels.

[Kelenius]

Seeing how SM is running at 4000 - 6000 K, and the metldown point is 7000, I'd say that engineers will be walking on thin ice all the time.

[Techhead0]

Engineers won't have to worry about a core meltdown event, I think. What they will have to worry about is the walls melting, automatically venting the core into space. R-walls start to melt at 6000K.

[RavingManiac]

I managed to push the temperature well past that in testing. It might only apply if there's a fire.

The SM can be tweaked to run at whatever temperature, but the thermoelectric generators will still require >4000K to put out 1MW with the current setup without violating conservation of energy and so on. Increasing the amount of radiators might help.

Also, the emergency cooling is effective enough at lowering engine temperature to give engineers quite a bit of leeway.

[RavingManiac]

Further testing indicates that the engine is pretty forgiving unless something gets damaged or blown up. Engineers just need to remember to fire AT MOST 12 shots from the emitter, and wait patiently for power to increase to 1.0 - 1.3 MW. Otherwise, they'll have to rely on the emergency cooling mechanism a lot.

[mwerezak]

Engineers won't have to worry about a core meltdown event, I think. What they will have to worry about is the walls melting, automatically venting the core into space. R-walls start to melt at 6000K.

The reactor walls melting is actually where the term 'meltdown' comes from. I think you meant delamination?

[RavingManiac]

Should be good for merge now.

Edit: Should note that I managed to lower operating temperatures to 3000-4000K with some tweaking.

[PsiOmegaDelta]

R-walls do melt at 6000K assuming there is also a fire.
Anyway, I have seen no objections against the TEG setup as such so 👍

[PJB3005]

Putting this here because it doesn't give a notification from gitlab: https://gitlab.com/vgstation/vgstation/merge_requests/53