Ab-W melting setup

[fox_kirya]

Abyssalite can be melted to tungsten at 3422 °C. The only one fitting mid-game liquid I know is liquid steel. Ok, the temperature of solidification of a liquid steell (as said in knowledge base) is 1084 °C, not so much to get from about 50 °C. How can I heat my steel up to this temperature - magma!

The idea is to use liquid steel as coolant for metal refinery. Its evaporation temperature is 3.8k °C - enough to melt abyssalite into tungsten.

The setup is finished and started! Magma is running in pipes, temperature of solid steel in front of radiant pipes is rising insanely! 700... 800, almost there... 900, ready... 1000, steady... 1080, GO!

1100, uh, what? 1200, waidw? 1300...

WHAT? 

The temperature of solidification of a liquid steell is 1084°C - ok. But melting temperature of a solid steel is 2.4k °C.

Well, posted a bug. Pity.

EDIT: Looks like I should use magma to melt iron. Then pump iron and use it as coolant for the refinery to heat up and then to melt steel. And then pump steel, use it as coolant too and shed it onto abyssalite to melt it. That's the way.

[Tobruk]

I don't quite understand you. If steel solidifies at less than 1083, how did you get it in the metal refinery in the first place?

[fox_kirya]

10 minutes ago, Tobruk said:

I don't quite understand you. If steel solidifies at less than 1083, how did you get it in the metal refinery in the first place?

Well, I couldn't liquify steel. I thought I can when I was looking at liquid steel props. But my setup was wrong. I looked at props of liquid steel, saw 1k °C there as a temperature of solidification and thought the temperature of liquification is the same (like for all other materials). But it's not.

Edited initial post, now it's written there how to properly liquify steel.

[fox_kirya]

Nah, thermal conductivity of abyssalite won't let melt it. Forgot it's an insulation. xD

[KittenIsAGeek]

1 hour ago, fox_kirya said:

Nah, thermal conductivity of abyssalite won't let melt it. Forgot it's an insulation. xD

You can technically get around its insulative properties, but that requires absolutely absurd temperature differentials.  Magma bumping up against -30c abyssalite will warm it slowly.  Against 400c abyssalite? Nope.. So we're looking at a minimum of a 1k temperature delta just to start warming the abyssalite up.  If it melts at 3422, then you'll need about 4500c just to warm it above the melting point.

[fox_kirya]

39 minutes ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

You can technically get around its insulative properties, but that requires absolutely absurd temperature differentials.  Magma bumping up against -30c abyssalite will warm it slowly.  Against 400c abyssalite? Nope.. So we're looking at a minimum of a 1k temperature delta just to start warming the abyssalite up.  If it melts at 3422, then you'll need about 4500c just to warm it above the melting point.

Found another way to produce tungsten infinitely. But it's an exploit. When an automatic door (yellow) is being melted, it visually stays on its place, but the material of this door (in the layer behind the door) is being dropped. If then you use an automation to open and close the door, it spawns back a new portion of material behind it, so you can melt it once again. Anthropogenic tungsten volcano. =) Avg productivity is 100 kg of tungsten per second.

[KittenIsAGeek]

2 minutes ago, fox_kirya said:

Found another way to produce tungsten infinitely. But it's an exploit. When an automatic door (yellow) is being melted, it visually stays on its place, but the material of this door (in the layer behind the door) is being dropped. If then you use an automation to open and close the door, it spawns back a new portion of material behind it, so you can melt it once again. Anthropogenic tungsten volcano. =) Avg productivity is 100 kg of tungsten per second.

Yeah, that's a known issue.

 

[fox_kirya]

14 minutes ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

Yeah, that's a known issue.

Wow, hasn't seen it yet. Thanks! 

Are there any other - legal - ways of getting tungsten?

[BLACKBERREST3]

Melting insulation is end game stuff, but there is a way. The other is to travel to a glimmering planet for wolframite and tungsten. We like to call this material world blocked because sometimes you get unlucky with certain maps i.e no planet or tungsten.

Spoiler

It's gotten too easy to copy and paste other topics when you have a master list 

 

[TLW]

I haven't tried this; you may be able to melt steel via bootstrapping though gold. Gold vaporizes at 2860C, IIRC, and steel melts below that (although not by much!). Run a molten-gold refinery through a tungsten radiant pipe in a steel tile in a vacuum dewer (with a relatively large buffer tank so you don't end up overshooting) and you may get your molten steel. You may be able to skip the tungsten radiant pipe and just use steel; you'll end up with gold mixed in with your steel. (Or you might try obsidian pipe instead; you'll have to be much more careful about not overheating.)

3 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

You can technically get around its insulative properties, but that requires absolutely absurd temperature differentials.

A simpler option may be abyssalite on conveyors through diamond tiles (maybe with radiant pipes too?). Items on rails exchange heat way too quickly right now.

 

As an aside, the steel loop is rather heat-negative - solid steel has a heat capacity of 0.49 whereas liquid steel has a heat capacity of 0.386. A pity we can't current (ab)use this.

[Mathgeekburch]

6 hours ago, fox_kirya said:

The temperature of solidification of a liquid steell is 1084°C - ok. But melting temperature of a solid steel is 2.4k °C

Yeah, there are a few materials where the melting temperature, and the freezing temperature are different.  It isn't a bug; it particularly makes liquid steel a very useful liquid with a large temperature range, without making solid steel melt as easily as copper.

The other big materials that do similar is magma, liquid carbon, and molten glass.

It is an effect that you can use to your advantage; but it does make it harder to get to the liquid forms of these materials.

If you want liquid steel, try either using a steel kiln in a vacuum on top of mesh tiles until it melts.  Or put molten aluminum into the metal refinery and then melt steel with it.

Also melting abyssalite isn't a thing you should attempt mid game.  It is one of those things that most people won't even attempt late game.

It can be done, but it requires a lot of heat; like 470 uses of a metal refinery to produce steel amount of heat; and almost all of that heat gets deleted when the abyssalites melts.  Most people would rather do multiple rocket trips than deal with that and the low conductivity.

[nakomaru]

Renewable tungsten:

• Convert abyssalite to insulation.
• Build insulation tempshift plate.
• Build diamond tile.
• Pump liquid niobium through a refinery and the tile output it to a pool next to the tiles.

[Majestix]

2 hours ago, nakomaru said:

Convert abyssalite to insulation.

Build insulation tempshift plate.

Build diamond tile.

Pump liquid niobium through a refinery and the tile.

Renewable tungsten.

Stupid question: what do you make pipes out of to avoid them melting when you pipe liquid niobium through? At least looking simple-mindedly at the tables, there does not seem to be a material that can withstand 3700 C. I am guessing that radiant pipes are definitely out, but I cannot even find an eligible material for normal pipes. Or do you just keep repairing them?

[nakomaru]

32 minutes ago, Majestix said:

Stupid question: what do you make pipes out of to avoid them melting when you pipe liquid niobium through?

No, that's a wonderful question, and you're right. What you do instead is make the pipes out of insulated insulation and drop it into a pool which is thermally coupled to the plate, which is cycled back by a pump. You don't need any tungsten to start, and niobium would be a bit safer.

Here are three melting examples: 1, 2, 3.

[Majestix]

3 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

No, that's a wonderful question, and you're right. What you do instead is make the pipes out of insulated insulation and drop it into a pool which is thermally coupled to the plate, which is cycled back by a pump.

Thanks! But now I am even more confused: wouldn't insulated insulation prevent all heat to be exchanged between the hot content of the pipes and the pool?

Could one just melt the pipes on purpose by making non-insulated pipes out of insulation and get tungsten this way? Then would one still need the insulation tempshift plate?

[nakomaru]

4 minutes ago, Majestix said:

Wouldn't insulated insulation prevent all heat to be exchanged between the hot content of the pipes and the pool?

See example 1 which I added above for the set up by @lusss. (Already linked by blackberry, sorry.)

4 minutes ago, Majestix said:

Could one just melt the pipes on purpose by making non-insulated pipes out of insulation and get tungsten this way?

Yep, that's example 2 by @calibayzone. No need for the plate in that case.