Why do insulated pipes break?

[SharraShimada]

i´m running thermo regulators to cool down hydrogen.

Every now and then, the output pipe of a regulator breaks.

The pipes are made of insulator and are insulated pipes. So there should be no heat exchange at all. So the hydrogen cant change its state in any way, and the pipe should not break.

Do i miss something?

[AMBLCO]

You are maybe cooling down too much the hydrogen. Watch the temperature of the hydrogen when it's going out it might below -252.2 degrees.

[Lilalaunekuh]

8 minutes ago, SharraShimada said:

The pipes are made of insulator and are insulated pipes. So there should be no heat exchange at all. So the hydrogen cant change its state in any way, and the pipe should not break.

Do i miss something?

A thermo regulator/ auquatuner can produce a gas/liquid cold enough to liquify/solidify.

=> The phase change will happen in the first pipe segement after the thermo regulator/auqatuner.

 

(A solution would be a thermo sensor to check if your input gets to cold.)

[SharraShimada]

Sure, it COULD, but hydrogen liquifys at -252,2°C. The pipes break at around -100-150°C ant that makes no sense.

The regulators are just there for pre-cooling the gas to -230°C, so the hydrogen wont change its state, and then is transported to a chamber, where its cooled down to liquid state. The thermo regulators are never coming near liquifying temperature.

[AMBLCO]

Idk, really weird. You should submit a bug report.

[Lilalaunekuh]

3 minutes ago, SharraShimada said:

Sure, it COULD, but hydrogen liquifys at -252,2°C. The pipes break at around -100-150°C ant that makes no sense.

The pipe has NO influence here.

If your hydrogen gets to cold inside the thermo regulator it will break the first pipe after the building.

 

3 minutes ago, SharraShimada said:

The thermo regulators are never coming near liquifying temperature.

There is nothing else that should break your pipes. (besides a bug^^)

=> You liquify some hydrogen. (Can happen with smaller packets or for some other reasons)

[Guest]

2 hours ago, SharraShimada said:

The regulators are just there for pre-cooling the gas to -230°C, so the hydrogen wont change its state

Is it possible you get an occasional cold packet sneaking in that is within 14C of phase change? I have experienced this problem before when I do not control the input temp feeding the regulator. These days, I usually run regulators and aquatuners in a closed loop so the problem is avoided.

[Neotuck]

Can we see a picture of your setup?

I'm guessing a packet is getting past your filter and is cooling past the -252C

[SharraShimada]

I had a network of gas shutoffs paired with pipe-temp-sensors. Now i´ve changed it to one sensor, and a hardwired set of 4 regulators. 

I think, something tricked the system because of the too much scanning and diverting, and some portions of hydrogen got clogged up, causing a hickup in the process. 

3 sensors less, and it runs like hell.

 

If your interested, look at my recent bug report, there is the save attached. 

If you find the problem, please let me know.

 

[Nitroturtle]

For some reason, that fourth regulator shows that it contains 1800Kg of hydrogen at around -60°C.  I imagine this is being mixed with whatever gas passes through, resulting in the higher output temp.  Destroying and rebuilding that reg fixes the issue.

[SharraShimada]

57 minutes ago, Nitroturtle said:

For some reason, that fourth regulator shows that it contains 1800Kg of hydrogen at around -60°C.  I imagine this is being mixed with whatever gas passes through, resulting in the higher output temp.  Destroying and rebuilding that reg fixes the issue.

Yes it fixes it for a few rounds of hydrogen, and then returns. It also hops back to the last one in the row, it i disable the 4th one. And back to the second when i also disable the third. But the first one is never affected....

I rebuild them several times, with differen materials for the regulators, and for the pipes, it returns every time. The last one is adding heat, and some pipe-outputs break. It has to be either a bug, or related to the sensor-shutoff network. 

[jlarner]

I can't get your save to work, but it sounds like what's happening is that the regulator is repeatedly cooling the same packet (because maybe it can't escape?), and the hydrogen is backing up inside.  Then when it eventually can get out, it's too cold so it breaks the pipe.

[Nitroturtle]

I'm curious how 1800Kg of hydrogen ends up in the regulator.  That's 1800 packets in a pipe.  If a regulator is disabled, does it continue to allow gas to enter? 

[Zarquan]

3 hours ago, Nitroturtle said:

I'm curious how 1800Kg of hydrogen ends up in the regulator.  That's 1800 packets in a pipe.  If a regulator is disabled, does it continue to allow gas to enter? 

Almost.  If the output pipe is broken, then the thermoregulator starts infinitely storing hydrogen (or whatever gas you put in).  I made a complaint about it before (and a bug report a while ago).  This also happens in aquatuners and, most famously, metal refineries.  The reason is that when the output pipe is full or does not exist, the machine shuts down.  A broken pipe is neither of these, so the building tries to keep running, but can't output the outputs.  This leads to steam explosions from metal refineries, especially among newer players.

Basically, a broken output pipe doesn't disable the building.  I think this is an undesirable behavior.  It should either dump the gas/liquid out of the machine via the broken pipe (and in to the environment, which would be a fun mechanic) or turn off the machine (which would probably be a more balanced mechanic).

 

[Nitroturtle]

1 hour ago, Zarquan said:

Almost.  If the output pipe is broken, then the thermoregulator starts infinitely storing hydrogen (or whatever gas you put in).  I made a complaint about it before (and a bug report a while ago).  This also happens in aquatuners and, most famously, metal refineries.  The reason is that when the output pipe is full or does not exist, the machine shuts down.  A broken pipe is neither of these, so the building tries to keep running, but can't output the outputs.  This leads to steam explosions from metal refineries, especially among newer players.

Basically, a broken output pipe doesn't disable the building.  I think this is an undesirable behavior.  It should either dump the gas/liquid out of the machine via the broken pipe (and in to the environment, which would be a fun mechanic) or turn off the machine (which would probably be a more balanced mechanic).

 

This makes sense then, since the system in the save is definitely breaking pipes.  The reason the pipes are breaking, is that pipe sensors and valve automation don't work correctly when backups occur.  This system does not prevent backups, so after running it for a little while I was seeing hydrogen go through that final regulator and come up breaking the outlet pipe.

 

[Zarquan]

4 minutes ago, Nitroturtle said:

This makes sense then, since the system in the save is definitely breaking pipes.  The reason the pipes are breaking, is that pipe sensors and valve automation don't work correctly when backups occur.  This system does not prevent backups, so after running it for a little while I was seeing hydrogen go through that final regulator and come up breaking the outlet pipe.

 

Yes, backups need to be prevented for the automation-based filters to work properly.  But I believe that a mistake like that shouldn't cause hydrogen to be backed up in the thermoregulator.  The two ways to get the hydrogen out are destroying the thermoregulator, which can cause a huge mess, or by feeding it smaller packets.  a 1 gram packet will pull 999 grams out of the machine.  Maybe I could make an automation to handle this if the pipe is supposed to break (as I want to build a pre-space liquid hydrogen machine that works decently).