Daisy Chained Aquatuners

[Mikemac]

I have two aquatuners being fed by one regular liquid pump that's fully submerged in petroleum. It goes:

Pump out > Aqua 1 in > Aqua 1 out > Aqua 2 in > Aqua 2 out > Cooling pipes > Liquid vent above pump

For some reason the aquatuners keep stopping and starting. They alternate on and off, saying "Pipe empty" or "Pipe blocked." It creates gaps in the petroleum pipes about 3 wide.

My hunch is that there's an internal reservoir in the aquatuners that allows them to get desynchronized. Anyone have any workarounds for this? I've tried making the pipes back up until every possible segment is full, then starting it again. This works for 30 seconds or so, then back to stuttering. Also, I'm almost positive the throughput of all the active components are the same.

I've included screenshots. They are kind of messy, but I don't think there's any accidental loops.

EDIT: Thanks a lot, everyone. An overflow path through an extra bridge plumbed in parallel did the trick. 10kg in every segment. Trying to do all my cooling with steam engines and this will help a lot.

[WanderingKid]

I've found using a 2 bridge system has flattened out the spin up cycle that the aquatuners have.  I first ran into this when my sensors weren't triggering at the correct temperatures and I would get too cold water freezing occasionally.

The image below is from my petrogen system.  If you look at the bottom, there's a double bridge to even out the petroleum  polluted water flow when it needs a moment to spin up.

Here's the simplified design I used to figure it out:

[Nightinggale]

If I am to take a wild guess, then the issue is the startup/shutdown cycles. Something like this:

1. A1 is running. Oil arrive at A2
2. A2 notice oil at input and starts up
3. A2 takes oil at input. A1 stops because A2 didn't take oil during last step and now the output is blocked
4. A1 notice oil at input and empty output and orders startup
5. A1 starts again. A2 stops because A1 left a gap in the flow and there is no input
6. go to step 1

You can try to fix it by adding a buffer. It can be done by adding storage between the two aquatuners. However less can likely do it as well. At the bridge, extend the pipe downwards from input, build a valve to the right and set it to max flow. Now connect the output of the valve to the output of the bridge. The oil will try to use the bridge, but if it backs up, it will go through the valve instead. This adds an additional 3 pipes to fill, meaning the first aquatuner will not stop because the second needs time to start. At least that's the idea.

[avc15]

Additionally, have you considered using individual / separate ATs with a feedback loop? This is an older build that you would have seen here a lot when we had fewer components to build with:

This arrangement takes part of the output and sends it back to the input, so you get more than 14C delta T. The delta T winds up being:

14 C / (1 - feedback / 10 kg )

Examples.

If you set the flow valve to 5 kg/s, your AT cools by 28C (double) but only outputs 5 kg/s (half)

If you set the flow valve to 6666 g/s, your AT cools by 42C (triple) but only outputs 3.3 kg/s (one third)

 

 

[OxCD]

49 minutes ago, avc15 said:

Additionally, have you considered using individual / separate ATs with a feedback loop? This is an older build that you would have seen here a lot when we had fewer components to build with:

This arrangement takes part of the output and sends it back to the input, so you get more than 14C delta T. The delta T winds up being:

14 C / (1 - feedback / 10 kg )

Examples.

If you set the flow valve to 5 kg/s, your AT cools by 28C (double) but only outputs 5 kg/s (half)

If you set the flow valve to 6666 g/s, your AT cools by 42C (triple) but only outputs 3.3 kg/s (one third)

 

 

Really like this one. Way better than chained aquatuner as I'm actually doing.

[Lacost]

@Mikemac Why do you use petroleum as the cooling liquid in your aquatuners? The specific heat capacity is about 3 times lower than that of water which wastes a huge amount of electricity. 

[SharraShimada]

1 hour ago, Lacost said:

@Mikemac Why do you use petroleum as the cooling liquid in your aquatuners? The specific heat capacity is about 3 times lower than that of water which wastes a huge amount of electricity. 

What does it matter? The tuners will remove 14° not matter the temperature or the liquid. Its a fixed temperature decrease and it will aways consume 1200W / liquid input (no matter the quantity). So 50° 10kg water will consume the same amount of power as 50° 10 petroleum. Both will cost 1200W, and be 46° at the ouput. 

 

Back to the original problem: They tune up, backing up the pipe for a short duration. I use buffer reservoirs at output. This also prevents pipe breaking, du to blocking, which happens sometimes.

[OxCD]

14 minutes ago, SharraShimada said:

What does it matter? The tuners will remove 14° not matter the temperature or the liquid. Its a fixed temperature decrease and it will aways consume 1200W / liquid input (no matter the quantity). So 50° 10kg water will consume the same amount of power as 50° 10 petroleum. Both will cost 1200W, and be 46° at the ouput.

The heat capacity matter as it retains more or less heat per kg. So because you're decreasing temp at a fixed value, you'll delete more heat if heat capacity is higher. Still I agree it doesn't change wattage.

Nevertheless I would appreciate a confirmation from better physicians than me, even if it sounds logical to my ears.

We're a bit off-topic, but not that much, as the OP is still about optimisation around aquatuner.

[Nightinggale]

9 minutes ago, OxCD said:

The heat capacity matter as it retains more or less heat per kg. So because you're decreasing temp at a fixed value, you'll delete more heat if heat capacity is higher. Still I agree it doesn't change wattage.

Nevertheless I would appreciate a confirmation from better physicians than me, even if it sounds logical to my ears.

More or less this. Say you build a cooling system where you cool a liquid 14 C and heat it up 14 C by cooling petroleum. If you use water as coolant, you can cool 2.37 kg petroleum 14 C for every kg of water. If you use super coolant, you can cool 4.8 kg petroleum for every kg sc. The aquatuner has a fixed power usage for each kg it cools regardless of heat capacity (we assume full pipe. Anything else is wasteful).

This means it's the most power efficient to cool water (prior to super coolant) and then place all the water in a room. Use radiant pipe to put petroleum through it. Setting up an aquatuner and a pump, you use 1200+240=1440W when it's on, but it only has to run 1/2.37 of the time to provide the same cooling, meaning it consumes 1440/2.37=606W on average to provide the same cooling. In the setup for OP, it means removing one aquatuner and get the same cooling.

Since OP is using the heat from the aquatuners for a steam turbine, the turbine output comes into the equation. However the aquatuner will get hotter when the heat capacity is higher, meaning one aquatuner cooling water will provide 2.37 times the heat of one cooling petroleum. When using 1200W on cooling petroleum, it generates steam to produce 238 W. If you cool water instead, the turbine will produce 566 W.

[SharraShimada]

The problem with water would be still, one has to mange ti carefully to not reach 100°C or the pipes will break. And 100°C is achieved very fast in ONI.

[OxCD]

I was talking only about the heat outcome from cooling by 14°C different liquid at different heat capacity.

I was not including wattage usage/relation, or incorrect t° management (which can lead to reach min or max liquid t°).

39 minutes ago, Nightinggale said:

Say you build a cooling system where you cool a liquid 14 C and heat it up 14 C by cooling petroleum. If you use water as coolant, you can cool 2.37 kg petroleum 14 C for every kg of water. If you use super coolant, you can cool 4.8 kg petroleum for every kg sc.

@Nightinggale your first paragraph, if I get it correctly, does confirm what I've previously said.

With aquatuner, because you're decreasing temp at a fixed value, you'll delete more heat if heat capacity is higher. Isn't it ?

[Lacost]

54 minutes ago, SharraShimada said:

The problem with water would be still, one has to mange ti carefully to not reach 100°C or the pipes will break. And 100°C is achieved very fast in ONI.

You will still use petroleum in your pipes as coolant but you won't send it through the aquatuner. Instead, you only cool the water, dump it in a reservoir and pump petroleum in radiant pipes through it.

Even if the petroleum exceeds 100°C, the water will soak it up no problem because of the higher heat capacity. And even if it turns to steam it can't break anything because it isn't in pipes.

I'm struggling to find an application where you want to temperate something below 0°C or above 100°C before having access to supercoolant.

39 minutes ago, OxCD said:

@Nightinggale your first paragraph, if I get it correctly, does confirm what I've previously said.

With aquatuner, because you're decreasing temp at a fixed value, you'll delete more heat if heat capacity is higher. Isn't it ?

Exactly. This is why cooling anything else than water wastes more electrical energy in aquatuners before you get super coolant. It's the same principle with wheezeworts in hydrogen instead of oxygen.

 

 

[Mikemac]

9 hours ago, Lacost said:

@Mikemac Why do you use petroleum as the cooling liquid in your aquatuners? The specific heat capacity is about 3 times lower than that of water which wastes a huge amount of electricity. 

For sure I will switch coolants. I was just cooling down places hotter than 100C and also trying to send out coolant below 0C as an experiment. I was going to go PW for the main loop but I just decided to wait for super coolant because I'm not creating that much heat right now. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

7 hours ago, OxCD said:

The heat capacity matter as it retains more or less heat per kg. So because you're decreasing temp at a fixed value, you'll delete more heat if heat capacity is higher. Still I agree it doesn't change wattage.

Nevertheless I would appreciate a confirmation from better physicians than me, even if it sounds logical to my ears.

We're a bit off-topic, but not that much, as the OP is still about optimisation around aquatuner.

Feel free to go off topic. This is all interesting. I think I would have a hard time understanding specific heat and thermal mass had I not taken chemistry in school. It is kind of counter intuitive, especially as the aquatuners remove a specific temperature and not a specific amount of heat.

10 hours ago, avc15 said:

Additionally, have you considered using individual / separate ATs with a feedback loop? This is an older build that you would have seen here a lot when we had fewer components to build with:

This arrangement takes part of the output and sends it back to the input, so you get more than 14C delta T. The delta T winds up being:

14 C / (1 - feedback / 10 kg )

Examples.

If you set the flow valve to 5 kg/s, your AT cools by 28C (double) but only outputs 5 kg/s (half)

If you set the flow valve to 6666 g/s, your AT cools by 42C (triple) but only outputs 3.3 kg/s (one third)

 

 

I'm confused by this one. The heat removed is greater or the same?

[PhailRaptor]

39 minutes ago, Mikemac said:

I'm confused by this one. The heat removed is greater or the same?

The actual value of heat energy removed is unchanged, however by sending a percentage of already cooled fluid back through with uncooled fluid, you can achieve a lower end temperature product, albeit at a slower rate.  This will also save you power, as you are only running a single Aquatuner instead of several.

[avc15]

2 hours ago, Mikemac said:

I'm confused by this one. The heat removed is greater or the same?

Same amount of heat removed, some of the coolant recircs back so you get less flow and a higher delta T.

The AT processes full packets but the flow rate in and out are reduced.