Nuclear reactors won't get hot?

[Zetherin]

Hello,

I've got a setup that's been running for some time now and it's been working fine so I went away and started working on increasing other parts of my base. I have it set up so when a fuel cell is placed into the reactors (which are in a 2x2 setup) an alarm sounds so I can keep track.

Now recently they've been going non-stop. As soon as a fuel cell is expended, another gets placed. I finally realized what the probem is - that for some reason all 4 reactors will heat up to 650 degrees and just sit there. So half my heat exchanges aren't hot enough to produce steam which in turn causes it to barely pass my threshold by the time a fuel cell is fully consumed and therefore another is used almost instantly.

They didn't always sit at 650, they initially went up to the expected 1k degrees. Is there something about them I'm missing as to why they're stuck at 650 or is it a bug?

[AlexMBrennan]

Reactors have a finite heat output, and if you remove heat faster than it's generated the reactor will obviously cool down. I.e. you have too many heat exchangers

[Zetherin]

Oh okay, I'll have to go recount then. I had followed the guide on the wiki for counts but I guess I must have made a mistake. Thanks for the help

[Ass or boobs?]

Well, from my knowledge, having a 2x2 grid of reactors should only require 48 heat exchangers, but could be wrong.

[Warlord]

Originally posted by Red_Katana_001:

Well, from my knowledge, having a 2x2 grid of reactors should only require 48 heat exchangers, but could be wrong.

That sounds right. Each reactor can heat up 4 exchangers, and each reactor in a 2x2 get +200% efficiency, so 12 per.

But that is for break even. The reactors will never heat up to 1000C if all the exchangers are hooked up and running. If the turbines ever slow down from low demand, the exchangers I think will stop taking in heat, letting the reactors heat up a bit more as their heat isn't all siphoned off.

[Grumpy Old Gamer]

the fact they are running at 650 means you are trying to extract way to much heat through heat pies. The reactor tries to satisfy the furthest heat pipe by getting really hot. but they have a finite heat output which means the heat exchangers will only produce so much steam. The maximum output per reactor tile approaches 160 MW (a 2 X infinity strip). That means about 32 heat exchangers per reactor. Any more just won't get used.

Personally I use smaller 40 MW safety reactors, with complex control systems for ensuring they don't go critical if biters chew on the reactor setup. They are cheap, uranium is plentiful.

[Zetherin]

Originally posted by Red_Katana_001:

Well, from my knowledge, having a 2x2 grid of reactors should only require 48 heat exchangers, but could be wrong.

I just counted and I do infact have exactly 48. Per other suggestions I removed a few and took it down to 44. The reactors still hover at 650 though. Here's a screenshot of my nuclear site, is it too spread out? How can it be made much more compact?

Nuclear Site[i.imgur.com]

[Xilo The Odd]

only thing i could suggest is instead of running the heat in a loop, split it into two heat pipe lines, each one doing 24 exchangers, double sided so each side is only 12 exchangers long, feed water into the end and pipe the steam from both sides back into a mainline that goes to your turbine farm and steam storage. fewer heat pipes as well as dividing the heat between 2 requesting sources might be the key.

[GMC]

Originally posted by Zetherin:

Here's a screenshot of my nuclear site, is it too spread out?

Yes.

Originally posted by Zetherin:

How can it be made much more compact?

One example (at the top of the image):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=938415358

Basically, heat exchangers in rows immediaely adjacent to the reactors (just enough space for the belts to send fuel cells and remove empty fuel cells, although you could use bots for this).

[Xilo The Odd]

yep GMC has it right. that is how you compact your setup as well as boost your efficiency with heat.