Is a Steam turbine in a vacuum able to overheat?

[Nurgus]

Yeah just curious :)

[Andrewbh2003]

yes just like any building as the heat will have nowhere to go and the building will eventually overheat itself

[Nurgus]

hmmm ... but it has water flowing through it? + it sits on insulated tiles

[Nurgus]

Hm i found the problem in my idea. The overheat temperature is 1050°C but the "engine too hot" kicks in at 100°C.
even if it outputs 95°C the incoming heat would exceed this. If i somehow managed to use the "cool" water to cool the steam turbine, the average temperature would still be around 147°C right ? The reason im having these thougts is because the cooling for steam engines cools the insulation between the hot chamber and the engines... so im losing energy.

[71]

Are you using ceramic for the insulation tiles between the hot chamber and the turbine?

I'm not having any heat loss issues with the top insulation made out of ceramic and the rest of the hot chamber being jacketed by vacuum.

[Nurgus]

hm naaa, i didnt have ceramic at that state of the game. i should rebuild it. Im working on the Vacuum right now aswell :) had the vacuum idea yesterday and will realize it today.

[Geordy]

Use a bottle emptier to create a 5 tile wide puddle of water around the turbine. That should cool it down.

[Nurgus]

hehe thank you for your reply but i were interested in steam turbine behavior in a vacuum, since it outputs 95°C cool liquid :) i wonder if its possible in theory to cool the steam turbine down with its own output (if it were able to operate above the engine too hot state)

[Defektiv]

It outputs 4 kDTU/s. You can't pull that heat off the device in a vacuum. If you try then the device itself will get red hot and only build up heat. It will stay that way until you splash in some gas as a heat convection medium and then instantly the red heat from the device starts spreading outward among the gas particles.

[Nurgus]

what happens if 4 of the inputs are blocked and the engine is standing on metal plates through which the coldwater flows ? i know that vacuum does not transfer heat. in space we use tiles to transfer heat between liquids and machines. if the steam turbine deletes heat of a hot liquid, which it does, why shouldnt it be possible to cool it down that way (useful or not )

[DDRMANIAC007]

Originally posted by Nurgus:

what happens if 4 of the inputs are blocked and the engine is standing on metal plates through which the coldwater flows ? i know that vacuum does not transfer heat. in space we use tiles to transfer heat between liquids and machines. if the steam turbine deletes heat of a hot liquid, which it does, why shouldnt it be possible to cool it down that way (useful or not )

I think buildings only interact with gas or liquid in terms of thermal convection.

[Romeo Deluxe]

People do use it that way but not in a vacuum. Steam Turbine is good for cooling your base with an Aqua-tuner which cools the liquid, over long periods, AND can cool the Turbine at the same time. Never once overheating. The exhaust water either throw into a water tank or recycle back into the steam chamber.

I had to throw some automation to shut it down so it didn't freeze my H2O heat sink tank. My SPOM is a cool blue. Although it took over a 100 cycles to get that way.

The AT design needs some outside power, it's not self-sustaining.

You need an outside heat source to make power with the turbine. It takes a bit of experience to get it right, they can be finicky. I'm building one in magma, my first attempt.

[Angpaur]

Originally posted by Nurgus:

what happens if 4 of the inputs are blocked and the engine is standing on metal plates through which the coldwater flows ? i know that vacuum does not transfer heat. in space we use tiles to transfer heat between liquids and machines. if the steam turbine deletes heat of a hot liquid, which it does, why shouldnt it be possible to cool it down that way (useful or not )

I was courious about this so I tested this.
It works!
There is no point to cover 4 inputs because power output is cut in half no matter how hot is steam.
One metal tile is enough to keep the turbine cooled.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1854395641

It works because metal tile is not a building - it is a tile same like gas or liquid.
In same manner tempshift plates exchange heat with tiles in vacuum. But I guess this is some kind of exception from a rule that buildings without internal storage don't exchange heat with tiles they are standing on.

[Xuhybrid]

Buildings don't exchange heat with tiles around them. Only gas and liquid.

[Angpaur]

Originally posted by Xuhybrid:

Buildings don't exchange heat with tiles around them. Only gas and liquid.

Tempshift plates and also apparently steam turbines exchange heat with solid tiles.

[Xuhybrid]

Is metal tile the only exception or is this an exception with the steam turbine? Robo miner pokes it's head around the corner.