Poor Dupe's Niobium Tamer

[6Havok9]

Are you a brilliant scientist, but got fired because "the research tree is finished"?

Your kid's friends are out playing with their new viscogel toys, but all you can give him as a present is a punctured puft plushie?

Your wife complains how other dupettes always wear the latest fashion, while all you can afford is a moderately radioactive cobalt jewel that was just pooped by hatchie?

Don't have supercoolant to efficiently superheat or freeze your home?

Fret not, you can be the richest dupe in the asteroid too! With the Poor Dupe's Niobium Tamer.

 

It uses a waterfall-triggered pump (as shown by @Zarquan in https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/144183-full-magma-pump/ ) to reliably and constantly process 2 kg/sec of niobium from a 5x geotuned volcano, hence the large buffer tank.

It's made mostly from obsidian and steel, there are no "space age" materials. Some tungsten is needed for the sensors. Powered steel doors in contact with diamond tempshift plates keep the niobium pool at 2600c, dumping the heat into 4 tons of steam. This heat is then gradually injected into the turbine room by another door+plate combo, keeping steam temperature at around 200c. Equilibrium between the steam chambers is reached just before the next eruption. During dormancy both steam chambers settle at around 150/160c.

 

 

It uses plain water as coolant. The aquatuner kicks in at 15c and runs between 45% and 69% of the time, depending on the current volcanic phase. Niobium comes out at room temperature.

The first pipe segment (the one touching the niobium pump) is made of insulated ceramic and is kept cool by the waterfall. The tile the pump is "sitting" on is insulated ceramic too: this tile needs to be as to be as good an insulator as possible. A pipe element sensor shuts down the pump as soon as it detects niobium and the hot metal batch stays in insulated obsidian pipes just before the valves, which output 1000g/sec on a radiant tungsten pipe segment (just to get to operating temperature faster).

Insulated pipes are obsidian, plus some igneous rock for water in the steam room. Standard pipes are obsidian. Radiant pipes cooling the turbines and in the final heat exchanger are steel or better, tungsten is just fine. Tempshift plates are obsidian, or diamond when touching a door.

 

As you can see, this build has some clear advantages over its competitors:

It's self powered, including the geotuner running cost. This is crucial in today's busy asteroid environment, where free, abundant and clean energy is hard to come by.

It doesn't use any supercoolant or space age material, which you might have left at home while preparing for an interstellar trip to a superheated chunk of molten rock.

It never stops: you can sleep the sleep of the just, knowing that each cycle you are exactly 1.2 tons of niobium richer!

It's made mostly from local materials: helps to cut down on transport costs and CO2 emissions and supports your local community of.. unemployed scientists I guess. And rocks.

 

See ya and take care!

 

 

[Zarquan]

Nice build!  I've been wanting to do something like this.

On 12/23/2022 at 8:26 AM, 6Havok9 said:

The tile the pump is "sitting" on is insulated ceramic too: this tile needs to be as to be as good an insulator as possible.

I don't think this is needed.  In my design, I use of a non-insulated tile.  

[6Havok9]

5 hours ago, Zarquan said:

Nice build!  I've been wanting to do something like this.

I don't think this is needed.  In my design, I use of a non-insulated tile.  

I tried different solutions, but igneous rock melts and obsidian instantly causes "cold damage". A 0.1g tile of carbon works, but it's a hassle to build. Glass melts.

I couldn't make it work without an insulated tile there. Too much heat bleed.

[LadenSwallow]

How about an 'aerogel' glass block (0.1g) of frozen glass?

 

[Zarquan]

4 hours ago, 6Havok9 said:

I tried different solutions, but igneous rock melts and obsidian instantly causes "cold damage". A 0.1g tile of carbon works, but it's a hassle to build. Glass melts.

I couldn't make it work without an insulated tile there. Too much heat bleed.

The material being pumped is interacting with that tile?  I did not know that.

[6Havok9]

2 hours ago, Zarquan said:

The material being pumped is interacting with that tile?  I did not know that.

Usually that tile is either liquid or a tile in contact with the liquid, so this mechanic goes unnoticed. In this application however it becomes critical. The pump stores the liquid inside itself before sending it into the pipe, and during that brief moment the liquid interacts with the "cell of interest", just like a reservoir always does. Excessive heat bleed will cause the first pipe segment to break even if it's made of insulation, because the liquid is gonna come out of the pump below freezing temperature. Funny how it doesn't directly break the pump.

@LadenSwallow Natural glass tiles just don't cut it here. Pressure will break them, and where they could work.. they just melt.

[Magheat2009]

On 12/23/2022 at 8:56 PM, 6Havok9 said:

Are you a brilliant scientist, but got fired because "the research tree is finished"?

Your kid's friends are out playing with their new viscogel toys, but all you can give him as a present is a punctured puft plushie?

Your wife complains how other dupettes always wear the latest fashion, while all you can afford is a moderately radioactive cobalt jewel that was just pooped by hatchie?

Don't have supercoolant to efficiently superheat or freeze your home?

Fret not, you can be the richest dupe in the asteroid too! With the Poor Dupe's Niobium Tamer.

Props for this passage lol