Hot Plastic

[KittenIsAGeek]

I've finally gotten the time to play around with plastics on a big scale.  I've used them before when making things like mini pumps and high pressure vents, however this is the first time I've built major base areas with plastic.  And.. its creating quite the problem.

Plastic brings a huge amount of heat into your base, even when you keep your polymer presses cold.  For example, my press is currently kept at about 25f.  The steam that comes out instantly turns into ice.  However, the plastic blocks are very hot -- usually well over 100f.

This is because plastic has a rather high heat capacity compared to other materials.  For example, granite is 0.79(J/g)/K, sandstone is 0.8(J/g)/K, and water is 4.179(J/g)/K.  Its is also a very good thermal conductor.  Wolframite conducts at 15(W/m)/K and tungsten at 60(W/m)/K.  So plastic conducts heat 15 times better than tungsten.  

So plastic can hold a LOT of heat, and then quickly transmit it into other materials.  This means when you build your base with it, suddenly your base is overwhelmingly hot.  I've tried a lot of methods for cooling the plastic down before using it to build, but so far nothing has really worked.  For example, I put a storage compactor in water that was very close to freezing.   This did not work. A  single polymer press produced plastic faster than the water could cool it down.  Within a cycle, the storage compactor was holding plastic at over 100f.

What methods have others used to cool down plastic?  Is there a method that works?

Here's a better screenshot, with temperatures.

[Kabrute]

I build my petrol press in an ice biome sitting on mesh tiles partially submerged in pwater, the plastic that falls onto the floor is then fighting with several hundred tons of material

[KittenIsAGeek]

Just now, Kabrute said:

I build my petrol press in an ice biome sitting on mesh tiles partially submerged in pwater, the plastic that falls onto the floor is then fighting with several hundred tons of material

I'm doing something similar.  The mesh tiles are in polluted water that is dropping down at around 20f.  The steam that is emitted occasionally solidifies instantly, depending on how recently the aquatuner has been running.  This brings the plastic temperature down some, but not a lot. With continuous production, the plastic tends to stabilize around 100f.  You'll notice the top screenshot is 105f (that press has been running longer) and the bottom one says 148f.  The second screenshot was after a single production on a new press I finished setting up.

[Zarquan]

Your screenshot freaked me out a little because you are operating in Fahrenheit, and I thought your plastic was over 105 C, which would be ridiculous. 

105.8 F isn't that hot, but putting it in chilled water was a good approach.  You will want to be careful about the mass of plastic though.  Storage compactors can store 20000 kg of plastic, which is a ton of thermal mass that the water probably won't be able to do anything about.  You might want to make the plastic in to ladders underwater, then deconstruct that plastic when it cools.  Using ladders helps by spreading the plastic out and makes it cool down faster.  You might also want to put in a few  thermal shift plates, as those interact specially with temperature and can even the temperature out faster.

Honestly, though, 105F isn't that hot (about 40 C).  Many parts of my bases operate at that temperature and the duplicants don't seem too stressed about it as long as they don't stay there too long.

[Kabrute]

Needs a bigger vat of liquid imo, but Zarquan is also correct

[chemie]

I build ladders in ice biome and it instant cools down.  Then deconstruct and build in your base

[KittenIsAGeek]

I'm aware of the mass in storage containers and was taking that into consideration.  I was hoping to set something automated -- building and deconstructing ladders in an ice biome seems like it would get rather tedious, but I suppose that is a solution.

Also, if you look at the screen shots, I am already using tempshift plates.  The reason the water isn't deeper is because I was using the natural ordering of polluted water and clean water to mechanically filter the two.  The system completely handles the 162.5 watts of heat the polymer press creates while its running, it just is not enough to affect the plastic.

 

[TheOlz]

The easiest (?) option is probably to have a colder source of cooling.

I generally have my presses sitting on metal plates that sit over -20C oil or petroleum, this seems to cool the plastic that drops quickly enough that I never have to worry about introducing hot plastic to my base.

[Zarquan]

You have plates on your polymer press, but you don't have any pictures of the underwater storage setup.  The main issue is that there is no easy way to control which plastic your dupes use.  You could use automation and cold water.   Use doors to control the decent of the plastic.  You can build the polymer press on a door and time it so that every time the press finishes, you drop all the plastic one level.  Kind of like an assembly line, but with cooling.  You can then use a scheme like the image below (credit to @asveron) to "pump" the water up. This image is about cooling the polymer press, but I think it applies to your problem.  Thinking about it, you might just be able to use this scheme to cool the plastic, but you would probably want to move the plastic first.

[Coolthulhu]

19 hours ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

Wolframite conducts at 15(W/m)/K and tungsten at 60(W/m)/K.  So plastic conducts heat 15 times better than tungsten. 

Nope. Plastic-to-plastic conduction is 15 times faster than tungsten-to-tungsten. But plastic-to-water conduction has the same speed as tungsten-to-water. Lowest conduction matters.

There are exceptions to this (pipes in plastic tiles), but items lying on the ground aren't one of those exceptions.

[Arash70]

Guys I need plastic manufacturing

Can anybody post a good build?

op's system is a bit hard to make.

[Kabrute]

Not there yet on current world but long story short, build it in the top of a water resevoir on mesh floors so the floor is skim water.  Have storage compactor beside plastic press, to the right Made of Granite..  Put thermo sensor above compactor.  Vent CO2 from press straight up in first available space (Will be up left from thermo sensor).  Fill compactor with some amount of ice, set sensor to some 5 degrees above your current ambient temperature hooked direct to Press with "Activate if Below" .  Then build a statue to the left and right of this setup, with a tempshift plate behind the base of the left statue and the bottom of the compactor.  This creates a large thermal sync out of your entire water resevoire while providing constant cooling to counter the press heat.  Use small quantities of ice to make small amounts of water, each K is 1 full square of water once melted.