What metal to use + gas thermodynamics

[Jigsawn]

I'm confused between the different metals and their temperature properties. Mainly between wolframite and gold. I want to build a metal building that will disperse its heat quickly and therefore not overheat so quickly. Gold has +50 overheat degrees, but wolframite has a special heat dispersal property. What should I be using?

Also if anyone can describe the metal properties in laymans terms, or have examples demonstrating how the heat works if you build out of wolframite or gold, it would be muchly appreciated! There are all of these variables listed for the metals, and then the temp numbers in the building properties. Getting your head around how the final result is reached and what was the main cause of an overheat is the tricky bit. Cheers!

Side question: if I build thermoplates around the building, does that actually help to "draw out" the heat? I've still not really figured out what the point of thermoplates are, to equalise temperatures over a small area?

[PhailRaptor]

I'm reasonably sure that others have tested Thermal Conductivity pretty thoroughly, and have determined that when gases are involved, the other materials generally matter very little.  Gases all have very low Conductivity, all of them being small decimals.  Because the game engine will always use the lowest Conductivity when evaluating transfer of heat, it's irrelevant what the other material's Conductivity is.  There are reasons to use one material over another for Heat Capacity, but that's not important for the situation you are presenting.

Coming back to your situation, since both Gold Amalgam and Wolframite are metals, their Conductivity will be far higher than gases.  So the Conductivity doesn't matter.  You will definitely want the Overheat Temperature increase from Gold Amalgam.

Regarding Tempshift Plates...  Basically, it's an object with a large mass that interacts with gases and liquids in a 3x3 area.  They will not interact with the building directly, but as the building interacts with the gas around it, that gas will interact with the Tempshift Plates which will then, in turn, interact with gas over a wider area, dispersing that heat.

[Jigsawn]

Thanks. I don't know anything about thermodynamics so assessing the gases is difficult for me. I know people use hydrogen for cooling, because has a higher thermal transfer rate?

So at the moment my polymer press is in carbon dioxide, it's specific heat capacity is 0.846, and thermal conductivity 0.0146. A nearby hydrogen pocket has specific heat capacity of 2.4 and thermal conductivity 0.168.

I don't understand what specific heat capacity means. I mean I guess its how much heat the gas can hold, but what happens to the rest of the heat? It radiates outwards from that point once the gas is heated to its maximum level?

Thermal conductivity makes more sense, its how fast heat can pass through it.

So comparing the two gases, the hydrogen has more than double the specific heat capacity than carbon dioxide, so therefore it will take on more heat? And because it's thermal conductivity is higher too, the heat will pass through it faster than carbon dioxide? If I'm right then hydrogen is good for cooling because it takes on heat from its surroundings and also passes it on letting the heat from a machine radiate outwards, taking on some of it at the same time. Whereas the carbon dioxide is effectively insulating the heat, keeping it closer to the machine and causing it to overheat faster?

I've also built my polymer press in an ice biome - but I put it in a room made of normal tiles in order to contain the steam output and stop that rising up and melting the ice biome too fast. I can see on the temp view that the tiles are retaining heat. Presumably the room is doing its job of containing the steam but as a side effect it's acting as an insulator and containing more heat. I dunno if removing the tiles would make a big difference but I guess it might help.

[BlueLance]

I am not sure how it works so i am also keeping an eye on this chat, from what I am aware of though, you are on the ball that hydrogen is better for cooling than Carbon Dioxide.  or at least that's what I have observed

[Neotuck]

use drip cooling on polymer press

[BlueLance]

My polymer press cools itself down in the steam it creates once it condenses

[Yoma_Nosme]

You said your press is surrounded by co2. That's the bottleneck.

Co2 is the weaker link as you said. The press gives heat to co2 but much less since it can't take so much which makes the hydrogen irrelevant in the calculation. 

It's again the same principle as with any other heat transfer the lower conductivity is what counts.

Cheers

[Luminite2]

Specific heat capacity, measured in (J/g)/K, is how much energy each gram of the substance can absorb/release before the temperature rises/falls by one Kelvin (in this case, also 1 degree Celsius).

1 gram of hydrogen can absorb 2.4 Joules from your polymer press before getting one degree hotter. A gram of CO2 absorbing that much energy would rise roughly 3 degrees in temperature.

High capacity substances act as heat buffers, maintaining their temperature for longer when cooling or heating something else. Also, things in the game that cause fixed temperature changes are more effective on high capacity substances: wheezeworts cool 1000 grams of gas by 5C each second, so the amount of energy that the cooled gas can absorb before warming back up depends on the capacity. This is why you've probably seen everyone recommend putting wheezeworts in hydrogen. This effect is also why an aquatuner cooling polluted water (capacity 6) will heat up much faster than if cooling oil (capacity 1.69).

[BT_20]

@Jigsawn 

since everyone is dropping complicated math on you I’ll give a simple answer to the press problem 

Hydrogen with sufficient pressure is good

temp shift plates very good material doesn’t matter a ton granit should suffice 

a puddle of liquid is EXTREMELY GOOD it will suck the heat right into itself and with combination of shift plates and a puddle the room will be able to stay very cold 

for you’re situation i would say open up the room put a puddle on the press add shift plates problem solved (hydrogen not necessary).

 

[DyingCrow]

drip cooling presses and other things that get really hot is a great idea. If in a remote area near the oil pools, you can build a small ph2o tank and use a small pump to drip into the equipment, You can build 2 airflow tiles in the center and one mesh on each side, so it always forms a puddle without drowning the equipment, and let it drop naturally back into the tank, if you build vertically you can cool down multiple things naturally with a cascade. For example, i take as standard procedure stacking natg generators vertically (at least in pairs) so they cool each other. Same for battery banks and transformers, some of the po2 from the tank is routed to drop on the top level then cascade down cooling stuff as it goes. 

Its gross, but it works. Dupes go in on suits anyway, not that i have to worry about soaking or soggy feet, or stuff blowing up because short circuits.

[Kabrute]

sensor set 2C above ambient temp

using gold

[PhailRaptor]

8 hours ago, Jigsawn said:

So at the moment my polymer press is in carbon dioxide, it's specific heat capacity is 0.846, and thermal conductivity 0.0146. A nearby hydrogen pocket has specific heat capacity of 2.4 and thermal conductivity 0.168.

So just by looking at that, we can see that Hydrogen can transfer heat energy roughly 10 times faster than CO2.  Now look at the Capacity.  Hydrogen has roughly triple the Capacity that CO2 does.  So that also means that Hydrogen can hold 3 times more heat than CO2 does.  As Luminite2 described, it is this property of Hydrogen that makes it so valuable for cooling, particularly where Wheezeworts are involved.  Both Wheezeworts and Thermoregulators work by reducing the temperature of the gas moving through them by a fixed amount, regardless of the actual heat it contains.  Since we know that Hydrogen holds 3 times more heat than CO2 based on the difference in Capacity, a Wheezewort is 3 times more effective when working on Hydrogen than it is on CO2.

The same thing is true of Aquatuners for liquids.  P-H2O, for example, holds more heat than clean H2O.

[Jigsawn]

Thanks all, I understand the gas/metal heat transfer much better now, and that was the main point of the post.

For my polymer press overheating, I'm trying to solve the overheating using my own brains, so I gave it a shot before reading the answers about that here (still appreciated though!). That's why I'm trying to learn how the systems work, so I can try to solve it rather than just get given answers.

Here's what it looks like now:

Before this thread, the room just had the polymer press and the wheezeworts and was full of CO2 - because that's what was in the environment. 

After reading about how gas heating works in here, I added the algae terrariums to suck out the CO2 and replace it with oxygen, which transfers heat better. Once the CO2 was all gone, I turned off the terrariums to avoid overpressurisation. Hydrogen sources are very far away from this biome, so piping in hydrogen will have to wait. I didn't really see the point in trying to get hydrogen in there anyway, as the steam coming off the press would probably cause it to max pressure too quickly. I will have to see if the steam condenses and can be pumped away, then hydrogen could be an option.

Then I realised an obvious solution was to hook up a temperature sensor to turn off the press when it got too hot. I see later in this thread someone has suggested this too. At first this was working fine and the press was always turning off before it overheated.

Then I added the thermoplates (made from diamond). But although they are spreading the heat, the heat is sticking around for a very long time. The press now takes forever to cool down (many cycles). Why is this happening? I thought the heat would instead spread out from the press more quickly to the walls, and also give the wheezeworts an easier time. But actually it's the opposite!

My last addition is this mini-gas pump which I just researched. I was thinking maybe the hot steam from the press is lingering around and that's what's causing it to cool so slowly. So I'm gonna try pumping the gas away, maybe on a timer temperature sensor combined with a pressure sensor so there's always gas to aid with cooling.

Can anyone enlighten me as to why it stopped cooling down? Did I miss something crucial about thermoplates or is the steam the more likely culprit?

Also, I have problems with the press overheating before the temp sensor kicks in. Is there a way to link the temp sensor directly to the press, so it's monitoring the press' heat rather than the air around it? By the time the air is like 30C, 1 tile to the right of the press, the press is already hitting 100C+. So that means my temp sens has to be set very low, like 20C or something, which means the press is hardly ever turning on.

[KittenIsAGeek]

5 hours ago, Jigsawn said:

Also, I have problems with the press overheating before the temp sensor kicks in. Is there a way to link the temp sensor directly to the press, so it's monitoring the press' heat rather than the air around it? By the time the air is like 30C, 1 tile to the right of the press, the press is already hitting 100C+. So that means my temp sens has to be set very low, like 20C or something, which means the press is hardly ever turning on.

OK.  You've run into an issue with how much heat the metal can sustain crossed with how quickly the heat can be dispersed.  Try rebuilding your press with iron.  Since the limiting factor for heat transfer is the gas (oxygen in your case), switching to a metal that can hold more heat will even out the heat dispersal.   Additionally, your temperature sensor will give a more accurate reading if it is directly above your press, rather than to the side.  Heat prefers to disperse upwards, and cold downwards.  Finally, if you plant your wheezewarts on a gas tile directly above your press, they'll be more effective at cooling the entire system.

 

[Jigsawn]

Thanks, replacing the press with iron seems to help. I thought that would make the press overheat more quickly as it doesn't have the +50C or thermal movement from gold. How come the heat isn't sticking around inside the press for longer now? I moved the thermo sensor too. Did you mean airflow tiles for the wheezworts to sit on? I should probably do the same for my electrolyzer, I have wheezworts either side but maybe they would do a better job sitting above it in cooling the air as it come out?

[KittenIsAGeek]

The bottleneck for thermal movement is going to be the atmosphere. Or a liquid drip system.  Either way, the extra thermal conductivity of gold compared with iron isn't going to help much.  While gold can get hotter before taking damage, Iron can hold a lot more heat, which means the temperature won't spike as high when the heat ticks.  This lets the system run longer before getting too hot. 

Wheezeworts pull gas from below and release it above after eating the heat.  Cool air falls.  So they might be a little more efficient if directly above the heat source.  However, they're most efficient in a hydrogen atmosphere.  BUT.. your plastic press puts out a HUGE amount of heat.  Two wheezeworts aren't going to be able to keep up with that and you'll still have down time.  I've discovered that a water drip system, such as Kabrute showed in their post, really is the only way to keep the things cool.

As for electrolyzers.. there's a number of different posts about how to deal with the heat from them, along with some rather clever designs using wheezeworts to both cool the oxygen and pump it into your base.  Of course, if you don't have any wheezeworts, you can try a system like the one I posted about earlier in this thread:

 

[Flydo]

On 27/03/2018 at 2:15 PM, Jigsawn said:

I'm confused between the different metals and their temperature properties. Mainly between wolframite and gold. I want to build a metal building that will disperse its heat quickly and therefore not overheat so quickly. Gold has +50 overheat degrees, but wolframite has a special heat dispersal property. What should I be using?

Also if anyone can describe the metal properties in laymans terms, or have examples demonstrating how the heat works if you build out of wolframite or gold, it would be muchly appreciated! There are all of these variables listed for the metals, and then the temp numbers in the building properties. Getting your head around how the final result is reached and what was the main cause of an overheat is the tricky bit. Cheers!

Side question: if I build thermoplates around the building, does that actually help to "draw out" the heat? I've still not really figured out what the point of thermoplates are, to equalise temperatures over a small area?

It's really depend of the use your needs

First point the specific heat capacity (J/g)/K, it mean how much energy in Joules you need to heat 1 g of material up by 1°C or 1 K (3600 Joules equal 1 W for 1 hour but i don't know how the game calculate the time so i don't know how to convert the joule into watts if someone know).

(Nota: 0 Kelvin = -273.5 °C and 1 Kelvin= -272.5 °C, if you gain 1 K it's the same that gain 1°C)

Second point Thermal conductivity (W/m)/K is the important point and for that and wolframite is a way better that gold (7.5 times better) but overheat generally to 75 °C and gold overheat to 125 °C, your choice depend of the max temperature your place will reach, if you have a doubt use gold

Thermal conductivity mean the rate exchange between two material (always take the lowest thermal conductivity), if you have for wolframite a value of 15  for each °C difference your rate growing up by 15 W. See it like the speed indicator that heat go trough your material

So if your made a little excercice: i pump cold hydrogen at 0 °C (0.168 Thermal conductivity) in igneous rock gas pipe at 20 °C (2 thermal conductivity 1 specific heat capacity) in a room full of oxygen at 30 °C (0.024 thermal conductivity) :

your rate exchange between hydrogen and the pipe will be 0.168*(20-0)=.168*20=3.36 W/m (for me in physical m is meter but i suppose in game it mean tile) so your pipe 25 Kg gas pipe (2500g) 3.36*3600= 12 096 Joules/ 2500= 4.84 Joules/g / 1 specific thermal heat=4.84 will be cool down by 5 °C in one hour (in vaccum)

your rate exchange between pipe and oxygen will be 0.024*(30-20)=0.024*10=0.24 W/m

so 0.24 W pass from hydrogen to oxygen, but you will tell me "So, i don't care of my pipe material", not really cause your pipe is connected to other pipe in the same material so if your pipe have a good thermal conductivity all your pipe get cooling down by the first pipe and your hydrogen come to a pipe cooler than before, in this case all your pipe will begin cold faster and share heat more efficiency in space andmaximize rate exchange between pipe and oxygen

Why: Hydrogen take more heat from pipe that the pipe take it from oxygen so you will soon finish (not really but i make the relation bigger to show you) by cooling down your pipe for example to 10 °C

So you have now:

your rate exchange between hydrogen and the pipe will be 0.168*(10-0)=.168*10=1.68 W/m (for me in physical m is meter but i suppose in game it mean tile)

your rate exchange between pipe and oxygen will be 0.024*(30-10)=0.024*20=0.48 W/m so  exchange between hydrogen and oxygen is now two time more important

 

best material for tempshift plate is now diamon with a melting point of about 4 000 °C and have 80 thermal conductivity

I hope this is not too complicate explication

specific heat Capacity is energy needed to heat by 1°C one gram of material

Thermal conductivity is the rate of the energy going trough the material, it multiply  at each 1°C difference temperature you have between two material