Steam cold damage?

[Candyman]

I'm running insulated pipes with steam in them and the temperature drops rapidly despite being insulated?

[FourGreenFields]

Insulated pipes still do transfer heat. So depending on the materials used, and the heat difference, it could cool quite a lot.

[CloudSeeker]

What kind of material do you use? Just because you use insulated does not mean heat exchange will not happen. That is unless you use the end game material "Insulation".

Whatever is within the pipe will exchange heat with the pipe itself. So if you have built it from a bad material like Sedimentary Rock (because it is heat reactive) the steam will be chilled by the pipe itself and turn into water.

[voyager]

The best material you can probably use for insulated piping right now is igneous rock. But that's not enough. If you're transferring steam quite some distance, I'd make sure it's at least 150 degrees celsius.

[cswiger]

Make a loop and then return some steam back to the steam chamber via a gas valve or thermo sensor + shutoff to a high-pressure gas vent.

[Underlaw]

Make some ceramic, burning clay in ovens.....great for insulation

[Xilo The Odd]

a few things:

you'll want to use ingeous rock or ceramic for these insulated pipes. Ceramic is overall better but requires production, igneous is a quick and dirty insulative material that makes it great for insulated pipes.

second, gas pipes can be tough to transfer gasses that are close to a state change within i do a couple things to mitigate this wherever possible.

1. run the pipes through insulated walls

2. heat the material to a higher heat if possible before transferring it. this may require you to use a steel gas pump instead of a gold amalgum.

3. if possible run the pipe through warm areas along the way. it'll pre-heat the pipe so there will be less exchange of the materials transferring and the many pipe sections.

[Ambrsale]

Just an idea - Prepare steam on the boundary space region and make pipes on the space.

[Strygald]

In addition to what other said, don't expect your steam to stay steam for very long if you only heated it to 101C, nothing stopping you from making the steam hotter before you pump it through pipes.

[JYPAPI]

pump liquid only 1kg. no mater it become steam freeze no problem

[Ray]

You can also use radiant pipe to transfer steam if the pipe is in a vacuum. A few tiles may need to be repaired on initial use, but once the radiant pipe has achieved the temperature for steam it will NEVER drop in temperature.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by Ray:

You can also use radiant pipe to transfer steam if the pipe is in a vacuum. A few tiles may need to be repaired on initial use, but once the radiant pipe has achieved the temperature for steam it will NEVER drop in temperature.

If you do that you may want to run eg hot hydrogen through first. That way the hydrogen will heat the pipes and you won't have to repair anything.

[Candyman]

Yeah, I appreciate all of the responses. Super helpful! I was transferring steam with insulated vents (igneous rock/granite) to my rocket. It was running across the vacuum. I think it has stabilized now, but yeah, even with insulation it was dropping heat so fast.

[E Man]

Originally posted by Ray:

You can also use radiant pipe to transfer steam if the pipe is in a vacuum. A few tiles may need to be repaired on initial use, but once the radiant pipe has achieved the temperature for steam it will NEVER drop in temperature.

Wait, so in a vacuum, gas in radiant pipe holds temperature better than insulated pipe? Does that work for liquid pipes too?

[Candyman]

Originally posted by E Man:

Originally posted by Ray:

You can also use radiant pipe to transfer steam if the pipe is in a vacuum. A few tiles may need to be repaired on initial use, but once the radiant pipe has achieved the temperature for steam it will NEVER drop in temperature.

Wait, so in a vacuum, gas in radiant pipe holds temperature better than insulated pipe? Does that work for liquid pipes too?

I think so, since there is no atmosphere around to have a temperature interaction. At least, that's what I imagine is happening there.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by E Man:

Wait, so in a vacuum, gas in radiant pipe holds temperature better than insulated pipe? Does that work for liquid pipes too?

The vacuum itself is what is holding the temperature. The radiant pipes are just because the materials have lower heat capacity, so they take less heat to warm up. Using something like regular obsidian pipes works too, because obsidian also has low heat capacity.