This is a mess

[PhoenixGaming69]

I am trying to do an industrial sauna such as Francis John ( Here ), but mine is a complete mess. There's a cool steam vent in it, and there's constantly bursting gas pipes if I try to evacuate the remaining gases in the area.  The problem seems to be tied to small vaccuum pockets which get caught in air flow tiles or ladders, and these cause a ridiculous decrease in temperature at certain places along the gas pipes (made of ceramic).

I am thinking:

-block the steam vent, remove any air flow tiles / ladders, vent everything out, leave only oxygen?  then re-add the steam / water?

Help!!! I dont know how a place so freaking hot (close to boiling), is breaking all my pipes due to cold damage....

 

[0xFADE]

You pretty much can't properly evacuate the room till the vent goes dormant.

You can also NOT use insulated pipes to vent inside the hot room.  The breaks are most likely from the inside steam getting too cold because the built pipe is probably around 40c

[Yoma_Nosme]

You want to remove the steam. Right? Better approach...condense it to water then mop it up probably or pump it out depending on how much there is.

[Lacost]

First, don't put the cool steam vent in the sauna since it will cool down your steam. You want to operate the sauna above 125 °C in order to make use of the steam turbines. Adding colder steam to it will only rob you of potential energy. If you plan on putting petroleum and natural gas generators in, I recommend to go even higher (140°C) to reliably boil away the polluted water.

The pipes are breaking because the liquid/gas that is pumped through is too close to a state transition point. If your pipes are insulated then the surrounding temperature is irrelevant. Heat transfer happens because the pipe itself exchanges a little bit of heat with its contents which can be enough to cause a state transition. So either make your pipes out of insulation or ensure a constant flow through your pipe system. Or just don't pump around stuff too close to a transition point.

Vacuum tiles have a fixed temperature of absolute zero but can't exchange heat. They are the perfect insulator and will not interact with any source of heat. So they definitely can't cause your problems.

Vent out the oxygen. It is lighter than steam and will interfere with the steam turbines at the top of the sauna. Ideally you only want steam and CO2 in it.

[0xFADE]

You also don't want to put it in the sauna because it overpressurizes at 5k which doesn't give you much room to play with for everything else.

[TheMule]

On 4/10/2020 at 4:55 PM, 0xFADE said:

You also don't want to put it in the sauna because it overpressurizes at 5k which doesn't give you much room to play with for everything else.

I had one adjacent to the sauna and used door compressors to transfer steam. The sauna had a pressure around 20kg so simply incorporating the CSV isn't an option.

 

On 4/10/2020 at 3:52 PM, Lacost said:

Adding colder steam to it will only rob you of potential energy.

Actually adding 110C steam adds energy to the room. Steam turbines extract energy even from 98C steam. The problem is to turn them on, but in an industrial sauna you have other heat sources.

[psusi]

3 hours ago, TheMule said:

Actually adding 110C steam adds energy to the room. Steam turbines extract energy even from 98C steam.

Only if one of the tiles of steam the turbine is in is above 125 C.  i.e. if you use a split turbine design where you keep all of the steam from the cool steam vent on one side and the hot steam from your gas/petrol gens on the other.

You never, ever want to pump the steam.  Doing so costs you 480 watts of power to move only 1 kg/s.  Condense the steam into water first, then pumping that only takes 24 watts for 1 kg/s, or 240 for 10 kg/s.

[TheMule]

On 4/13/2020 at 4:35 PM, psusi said:

Only if one of the tiles of steam the turbine is in is above 125 C.  i.e. if you use a split turbine design where you keep all of the steam from the cool steam vent on one side and the hot steam from your gas/petrol gens on the other.

Yes, I had the split turbine design in mind, but I was making a theoretical point. As I wrote the problem is turning the turbine on. But in theory, steam turbines extract energy from steam above 95C (well, a bit above that, steam can't exist at 95C).

In an actively cooled setup, the heat economy of the steam chamber is that the turbine adds 95C water, something heats it up, the turbine extracts heat from steam. So adding anything that is able to heat up 95C water (including 110C steam) increases the heat inside the chamber. In a self cooling setup it has to be above the temperature of the water (something in the range 96-99.5C).

Another way of looking at it is this:

every second the turbines drops 2kg of water at 95C and something has to heat it up (for semplicity sake, let's say up to 125C). We're talking industrial sauna here so the 'something' that heats water up is industrial buildings. It takes 4.179 * 2 * (125 - 95) = 250.74kDTU to do that.
Again for semplicity, let's say your CSV emits 2kg/s. When active, you divert water from the turbines outside the sauna, and let the CSV refill the steam. Assuming the industrial buildings add the same amount of heat, those 2kg/s of steam now become 140C, not 125C. And the turbines produces more energy. So adding 110C steam instead of 95C water adds energy to the system.

On 4/13/2020 at 4:35 PM, psusi said:

You never, ever want to pump the steam.  Doing so costs you 480 watts of power to move only 1 kg/s.  Condense the steam into water first, then pumping that only takes 24 watts for 1 kg/s, or 240 for 10 kg/s.

As I mentioned, when I did it, I used (unpowered) door compressors. Now I'd use a displacement or bead pump, also unpowered.

Condensing water (in a renewable way, not just by dumping heat into the enviroment), has a cost too. Actually, from 110C to 96C it's 14C. So for 10kg/s the dominating cost isn't 240W of the pump, but 1200W of the aquatuner, if you don't use supercoolant that is. And of course you recover part (less than half) of that power via heat->power conversion, but still that's more that 600W on the AT part.  As far as gas pumps being much worse (4800W for 10kg/s) we agree 100%. 

The best way to tame a CSV is by using some split turbine builds that are floating around, even tho I've found them relatively unstable. In some cases I've had steam deletion problems, in other cases if they get overpowered by the CSV they are difficult to restart. But when they work, they are selfcontained and power positive (slighly). You can see them as blackboxes that produce 95+C water w/o any power. With careful planning and inlet blocking, you can have an almost constant flow of water, reducing the dormant phase to the minumum. I've never pushed it to the point of automating the opening of inlets but I guess it can be done. That way you can match the CSV output and have zero downtime.

The second best way (for me) is to combine the CSV with a metal refinery (or geothermal if nearby). It gets tricky if you want to run the refinery full time (it's a matter of temperature/pressure management, you'd like to have some thermal buffer but you can't let the vent to overpressurize). OTOH it's quite simple if you just use the refinery as a on demand heat source. I tend to smelt iron and steel. In both cases it's power positive since early on (other metals can be if your dups are skilled). Of course the refinery doesn't run when the CSV is dormant so that can't be your main steel production plant. The only problem here is if you're on a map with very little iron ore (of if you've used it all). On most maps, that's hardly a problem for many, many cycles. It's not infinitely sustainable tho.

Condensing builds are power expensive but trivial to setup, which is an advantage. You can do it with a golden amalgam AT. I've just build one in one of my playthoughs, quite an early build (some plastic from dreckos, little lime so steel is quite precious). The figures above are for 10kgs/s which of course is not the output of a CSV. At 1.2kg/s average the energy consumption is equivalent to around 100W.

There are other builds, among the non condensing ones. Tony Advanced on YT has a nice one that outputs both 95C and colder water that doesn't require steel either. I've never found use for cold water, I guess it can be modified to get water for a sleet wheat farm, or for an early cooling solution for the base.

[psusi]

49 minutes ago, TheMule said:

In an actively cooled setup, the heat economy of the steam chamber is that the turbine adds 95C water, something heats it up, the turbine extracts heat from steam. So adding anything that is able to heat up 95C water (including 110C steam) increases the heat inside the chamber. In a self cooling setup it has to be above the temperature of the water (something in the range 96-99.5C).

Yes, it adds heat, but it lowers the temperature below that at which the turbine will run, so aside from tricking the turbine into running using a split design, the cool steam vent is effectively lowering the temperature of the steam room, which means you have to add more heat.  A cool slush geyser is technically adding heat, but it isn't going to help you generate power with a steam turbine.

55 minutes ago, TheMule said:

Condensing water (in a renewable way, not just by dumping heat into the enviroment), has a cost too. Actually, from 110C to 96C it's 14C. So for 10kg/s the dominating cost isn't 240W of the pump, but 1200W of the aquatuner, if you don't use supercoolant that is. And of course you recover part (less than half) of that power via heat->power conversion, but still that's more that 600W on the AT part.  As far as gas pumps being much worse (4800W for 10kg/s) we agree 100%. 

I only said that pumping it as a gas and and then condensing it is far worse than condensing first, then pumping the liquid water, so I'm not sure why you wrote all of this just to agree with me.

 

[ZanthraSW]

On 4/10/2020 at 6:52 AM, Lacost said:

First, don't put the cool steam vent in the sauna since it will cool down your steam. You want to operate the sauna above 125 °C in order to make use of the steam turbines. Adding colder steam to it will only rob you of potential energy. If you plan on putting petroleum and natural gas generators in, I recommend to go even higher (140°C) to reliably boil away the polluted water.

...

For petroleum generators, it's worth actively heating them up to a few degrees below overheat temperature for the most efficient power production. If made from steel, the power cost of using aquatuners to maintain a petroleum generator in an isulated room at 265 degrees c (it loses a bit of heat to the fuel) is only a few tens of watts on average, while the output 265 degree steam is worth about 600w.

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 4/9/2020 at 2:14 PM, PhoenixGaming69 said:

The problem seems to be tied to small vaccuum pockets which get caught in air flow tiles or ladders, and these cause a ridiculous decrease in temperature

It may appear that is happening, but it is not.   Instead what is happening is that steam is condensing back into water creating a momentary vacuum.  The blue color under your airflow tiles is to simply inform you that its a vacuum in that location.

On 4/9/2020 at 2:14 PM, PhoenixGaming69 said:

cause a ridiculous decrease in temperature at certain places along the gas pipes (made of ceramic).

The pipes are breaking because the steam is too close to condensing into water.  By time the pump pulls the air into the pipe, the steam temperature is already below the condensation point.  After a few steps down the gas pipe, the steam will condense into water and break the pipe.

 

If you want to pump the air out of the room, you have two options: Wait for the steam geyser to go dormant and pump the water out, or heat the room up enough that its ambient temperature is over 100c.  

[TheMule]

20 hours ago, psusi said:

Yes, it adds heat, but it lowers the temperature below that at which the turbine will run, so aside from tricking the turbine into running using a split design, the cool steam vent is effectively lowering the temperature of the steam room, which means you have to add more heat.  A cool slush geyser is technically adding heat, but it isn't going to help you generate power with a steam turbine.

You don't seem to get my point tho. A Cool slush geyser is not the same thing. 94C water is not the same thing. They do "remove" heat. A CSV adds heat. The temperatore at which turbine engages has nothing to do with it.

Look, you're already dropping 95C water into the steam chamber, from the turbines. Considering the steam chamber, 95C water goes in, steam (>125C) goes out. The turbine does the opposite (steam in, water out). The combination of the two is a closed system and (barring steam deletion bugs) the pressure remains constant. If the industrial sauna is active, and everything works, then there's enough heat generated inside already.

Now if you add water/steam from outside, you can't put all water from the turbines back in. If you want to maintain the same pressure, you have to remove the same amount of water from the cycle. And it's 95C water.

So if the external source is above 95C, you're adding more heat to the steam chamber. If the external source is below 95C, your're adding less heat.

The external source replaces the 95C water you'd put back in anyway. So when comparing to decide if you're add heat to or removing heat from the steam chamber, your baseline is 95C water.
 

In other words, if the machines inside the sauna are able to raise the temperature of 2kg/s of water from 95C to 130C, they'll be able to raise 2kg/s of 110C steam to 145C.
 

Of course in practice depending on the build there's a delay before the atmo sensor engages when the CSV begins erupting. For a little while 110C steam AND 95C water are added at the same time. This will lower the temperature of the steam chamber (but increases the pressure). But after the shutoff engages and 95C water stops entering the chamber, the pressure lowers and the temp raises again and it gets higher than before, because your machines now have to heat up 110C steam instead of 95C water.

[psusi]

3 hours ago, TheMule said:

You don't seem to get my point tho. A Cool slush geyser is not the same thing. 94C water is not the same thing. They do "remove" heat. A CSV adds heat. The temperatore at which turbine engages has nothing to do with it.

No, they don't remove heat.  Every gram of 95 C water that comes out of the vent adds another 4.179 * ( 95 + 273 ) = 1538 DTU of heat.  Every gram of 110 C steam coming out of the CSV adds 4.179 * ( 110 + 273 ) = 1600 DTU of heat.  The temperature the turbine starts up at has everything to do with it because it means that it won't consume either the 95 C water or the 110 C steam unless you add more heat, or use the split trick to force the turbine to eat the 110 C steam.

3 hours ago, TheMule said:

So if the external source is above 95C, you're adding more heat to the steam chamber. If the external source is below 95C, your're adding less heat.

Ahh, I see your point now.  The CSV is lowering the temperature of the steam in the room, but so is the 95 C water returning from the turbine, so if you remove the 95 C water and replace it with the 110 C steam from the CSV, then you have a net gain of heat.

3 hours ago, TheMule said:

In other words, if the machines inside the sauna are able to raise the temperature of 2kg/s of water from 95C to 130C, they'll be able to raise 2kg/s of 110C steam to 145C.

Right, but if your machines are only able to heat 1 kg/s of 95 C water to 125 C, then your CSV starts adding 5 kg/s, the temperature of the steam is going to drop and the turbine is going to shut down.  Even if your machines are making enough heat to keep 2 kg/s feeding back into the turbine, once the 5 kg/s CSV goes active, it will still shut down.  If you normally have enough heat to get 2 kg/s of 95 C water up to 140 C ( 376 kDTU/s ), then you switch to heating 5 kg/s of 110 C, that will leave you at 128 C.  Of course with the turbine only eating 2 kg/s of steam, the CSV will over pressure and shut down, so not so good.

Also a petrol generator only creates 20 kDTU/s so getting up to 376 kDTU/s is going to take 18.8 petrol gens!  It seems like you're going to need to keep the petrol gens in a steam room at 200 C so that the water coming out will be at 200 C, then slowly let that steam bleed over into the turbine room and mix with the steam from the CSV, and to keep it from going overpressure, you'll need to use a door pump to push the steam to the turbine and mix with the steam coming from the generator room.  If you have 2 petrol gens running full time at 200 C, then you will get 1.5 kg/s of 200 C steam.  If you mix that with 500 g/s of 95 C water returning from the turbine, the temperature will average out to 173 C.  Not bad, but I suspect that regulating the temperature of the generator room is going to be a pain.

Though I wonder how you deal with the CO2?  If you just use a skimmer the water is going to get pretty hot absorbing the 200 C CO2.

[TheMule]

11 minutes ago, psusi said:

Right, but if your machines are only able to heat 1 kg/s of 95 C water to 125 C, then your CSV starts adding 5 kg/s, the temperature of the steam is going to drop and the turbine is going to shut down.  Even if your machines are making enough heat to keep 2 kg/s feeding back into the turbine, once the 5 kg/s CSV goes active, it will still shut down

That's why before, for semplicity sake, I've assumed a 2kg/s CSV. If it's more powerful you need more turbines. Since usually have more that one turbine anyway, outmatching the CSV output is hardly a problem.

Note that if your machines are only able heat 1kg/s of 95C water to 125C the turbines barely run. That's why I've assumed there's enough heat to keep the temperature at least at 125C already (with the CSV inactive), with all turbines running.

If your industrial sauna can't keep the temp above 125C (without the CSV) you have all sort of problems with polluted water not evaporating. Basicly it's not working as expected. I'm assuming a working industrial sauna.

You'd engage the turbines only when the temp is quite high. Actually (if you keep your plastic production elsewhere) the higher the better, as long as you don't overheat stuff. Even above 200C. So far I had presses inside so the temp was around 150C (there are colder areas inside). Next time I'll try something hotter.

The petroleum gens raise the temp very little, but they create heat if again their temp is above 95C. If it's 200C even better. The major heat producers in an industrial sauna are metal refineries anyway. Steel/iron production alone (2 refineries) can drive 3-4 turbines. Rock crushers, kilns contribute too.

The whole point is if your industrial sauna is working correctly already (closed loop with 95C water), and has a number of turbines whose output outmatch the output of the CSV (most likely true, unless it's a very small one), the CSV erupting makes actually things hotter.

CO2 removal involves molten slicksters and/or door crushers. I've never bothered venting to space (yet). Yeah skimmers are a problem you can't simply use the usual sieve loop, even if you use ceramic. You have to cool down the water sooner or later. One thing I've never tried (I might one day) is using the 95C from the turbines (and dump pwater into the sauna). You do loose 1% of it (and gain pdirt). Probably with a sensor and a shutoff you can get rid of 101C water and add "fresh" 95C water taken from the turbines to the loop.