"The OSHA Hater" A Dangerously Compact 10kg/s sour gas boiler based on bead-pump design

[NurdRage]

First, although this works perfectly for +100 cycles, it's not meant to actually be used. It's not foolproof and will destroy itself if something goes wrong. I posted this more for humor when you decide to toss OSHA out the window.

The Design

As a challenge i was trying to make the smallest sour gas boiler i could (that could still process 10kg/s crude oil) and realized that the steam turbine could be eliminated if the heat was instead dumped into the outgoing natural gas. This naturally makes the outgoing gas very hot at around 160C-225C. But if it's going directly to a natural gas generator this is acceptable (as long as the heat is dealt with there).

This makes for an exceptionally compact system but it does run the risk of overheating and melting itself if there is a disruption. If the natural gas isn't used up continuously then the heat will build up until it exceeds the safe limits of the steel components. While i tried to include as many safety systems as possible, i eliminated many of them in favor of size. If you're looking for a safe and resilient Sour Gas Boiler with variable output and easy start/stop control, this is NOT it.

But if you like to live dangerously and have a soft spot for tiny things, this is the design for you.

As it is, it actually can't even be started up properly without melting itself. The startup system was eliminated to reduce size. As such, if you do want to use the boiler, you need to build it with a "Start Cart" for start up. You can then disassemble the start cart once the system is running smoothly.

 

Anyway, i'm not going to bother describing the system layout, i'm well aware it's chock full of flaws. I'm also going to assume everyone is familiar with bead-pump sour gas boilers so i won't bother describing the design philosophy. 

 

Here are the overlays of the various systems including the Start Cart.

Spoiler

Each of the liquid valves are set to 5000g/s

The bottom aquatuner is thermium. The upper aquatuner is steel. Start Cart aquatuner is also steel. All radiant liquid pipes are gold. All radiant gas pipes are steel. All components are steel. All insulated pipes are ceramic. All insulated tiles are ceramic. Everything is initially built with the power disconnected.

The start cart is filled with water in the steam chamber and hydrogen in the turbine chamber (or any gas really, doesn't matter too much).

Startup

First the system is completely evacuated or filled with natural gas, whichever one you prefer. Some oil is forced into the boiler to provide initial sour gas. Super coolant is injected into the coolant line and everything is powered on. Simply let everything run for a few cycles and eventually it'll generate a steady stream of gas. When all 14 pumps are pumping there will be sufficient pressure for self-running. The Start Cart can be safely disconnected.

Spoiler

 

Additional super coolant may need to be injected into the main system to achieve a reservoir level of about ~200kg for a good buffer. The Start Cart may be completely disassembled and the materials recycled.

"The OSHA Hater" will continuously boil 10kg/s of crude oil and generate 6.7kg/s of natural gas that can be pumped directly to natural gas generators. The unit will tolerate and recover from short disruptions in oil flow but a prolonged cutoff should be avoided as the loss of output natural gas pressure will cause the system to overheat. If you expect long disruptions to be a concern then i recommend installing a power shutoff to the main power line and connecting it to a liquid element sensor set to oil. 

Now i'm aware of the common practice of conveying the sulfur on rails through the heat exchanger to get some cooling out. I tried that but the compact design meant the path length was too short to make any noticeable difference in output temperature. But feel free to incorporate sulfur conveyance if you desire.

Anyway, i've tested this to work beyond 100 cycles and it seems solid. No overheat damage as long as the natural gas output is allowed to continuously pump away. 

Hopefully this is a worthwhile contribution to the community and some element can be found that can be incorporated into your own designs. If not let me know and i'll endeavor to do better.

 

 

 

[suxkar]

From an optimization maniac, thank you for this incredibly compact design.

Sour gas boilers always seemed huge and complicated to me, which kinda led me to ignore them. I had no idea they could be THIS small and I will surely give it a try. Thanks!

I'm guessing the power and conveyor bridges are there to facilitate heat exchange somehow, how do they work precisely?

[Ixenzo]

1 minute ago, suxkar said:

I'm guessing the power and conveyor bridges are there to facilitate heat exchange somehow, how do they work precisely?

Bridges have the same temperature in all three occupied tiles.

[NurdRage]

 

2 minutes ago, suxkar said:

From an optimization maniac, thank you for this incredibly compact design.

Sour gas boilers always seemed huge and complicated to me, which kinda led me to ignore them. I had no idea they could be THIS small and I will surely give it a try. Thanks!

I'm guessing the power and conveyor bridges are there to facilitate heat exchange somehow, how do they work precisely?

Just a lot of thermal mass and exchange interactions. The bridges span 3 tiles and as such, they instantly average heat across 3 tiles every time they recalculate. Great way of moving heat

[Malryn]

HI NurdRage

Thanks for sharing this build. What are the delays for the buffers? I am trying to see what I built in sandbox mode is not working right as after 30 cycles not all of the gas pumps are working full speed.

I am actually laughing at how good this build is. My boilers always had the problem of not enough heat but ur build has extra effort in generating enough cooling.

For those wanting their dupes building this big boy, you should build stairs on all the vertical tiles and replace them after building the interior. Works like a champ.

[NurdRage]

1 hour ago, Malryn said:

HI NurdRage

Thanks for sharing this build. What are the delays for the buffers? I am trying to see what I built in sandbox mode is not working right as after 30 cycles not all of the gas pumps are working full speed.
 

 

Oh they don't need to all work full speed, they just need to start working. In a perfectly balanced run they'll NEVER work full speed, i added a tiny bit of extra pumping capacity to ensure it would never over pressure (and thus overheat). By the numbers, 13 pumps should work at full capacity and the last one works at 40%. 

 

It should only take 2-5 cycles of startup to get running. 

 

 

[Malryn]

Gah. Would it be possible to post a save or blueprint? I am being short bus here on this. I got 4 gas pumps only turning only a few seconds a cycle. 

[NurdRage]

 

2 hours ago, Malryn said:

Gah. Would it be possible to post a save or blueprint? I am being short bus here on this. I got 4 gas pumps only turning only a few seconds a cycle. 

Here you go.

Its my test file so there are bunch of other things in as well. The unit is already hooked up to the start cart, you might want to disconnect it as instructed. 

And ignore the giant 30k boiler beside it. That's still a work in progress. there are still bugs in it.

 

 

Stupid Tiny.sav

[KittenIsAGeek]

I've been kicking around an idea like this for a while.  I like what you've done as it shows that some of my initial concepts are likely to work.  Of particular interest is the concept of a jump-start part to the build.  I want to eventually design a system that uses counter-flow heat exchange systems for the bulk of the work, but can be started and stopped on demand.  I think that a jump-start component to my build may solve the problem.

I'm thinking that perhaps underneath the bead pump I could place a room isolated by an oven door build that contains the aquatuner in dense steam.  A liquid sensor under the bead pump could open or close the door appropriately, while a thermal sensor in the hot room controls the aquatuner.  This would allow you to jump-start the system after a shutdown.  A bypass would keep the coolant flowing, and a second aquatuner under a steam turbine would allow the removal of heat if the hot room is already at sufficient temperature.

[nakomaru]

Inspiring. Thank you.

[caffeinated21]

Dumb question: what causes the beads to form? Old bead pump posts I’ve seen required dropping the liquid on a heavier liquid and having it fall to the side... 

[nakomaru]

10 minutes ago, caffeinated21 said:

what causes the beads to form

This phenomenon is known to some as the EZ-bead.

[avder42]

So I'm building my disastrously oversized colony (let in way too many dupes before I realized it) and I'm in a perpetual water crunch becaus of how many electrolyzers I need to run.  I already had a petroleum boiler built in the oil biome, but I needed more water recovery.  I have no need for the power whatsoever, I'm after the water.

So I built this badboy.  Actually put in a handful of extras such as an off switch and bypass for the main aquatuner, swapped the steel gas pumps out for thermium, and made the 2nd aquatuner out of thermium too.  Also added an autosweeper and conveyor loader in the condenser chamber because I'm going to use some sulfur to make some natural tiles for farming.  Had to move the gas shutoff to just below the device to make room for that.  Also added a service entrance to the condenser in the form of a triple airlock with regular tiles made from insulation above and below.  Have only needed to enter it once, when I fixed a rather large screwup on my part that resulted in the output of the device being mostly frozen methane, and when I swapped the gold pipes for thermium.  The tiny bit of carbon dioxide that snuck in is now imprisioned right next to the many many tons of sulfur that have built up at the bottom.

Also swapped out the lowest row of conductive gold pipes for thermium, And also added a way to add a pathetic 2.8% more cooling for the supercoolant with a thermo regulator running hydrogen as cold as it can manage.  Believe it or not the thermo regulator is what finally got the super coolant down from the -185 where it had been hovering for 100+ cycles causing occasional stalls due to overpressure in the condenser to a nice crisp -195 where we're finally running at 100% uptime.  Took about 30 cycles to do it, but hey, it got there.

I'm also wasting about 30,000KJ of energy daily.  But this monstrosity has managed to help me keep my inordinate number of dupes in a mostly breathable atmosphere.

Thank you for adopting the Cave Johnson design philosophy of "Science isn't about why, it's about WHY NOT?" and saving my dupes from spending eternity in stasis pods, aka sight seeing modules that never go anywhere.