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What's the best way to transport this hot metal....


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OK guys, this storeroom is part of a steam boiler. I want to put iron that's just barely cool enough to be solid into these storage compactors, and then use the heat in the room to boost the temp of the steam next door:

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molten iron cools and solidifies in (1)

I need to move it into the storage compactors in (2), which is full of high pressure hot (hydrogen/steam, haven't decided yet). And that's the root of this challenge, I don't want to waste heat energy, I need to keep (1) purged to vacuum, and I don't want the people space to become hazardous.

(2) is the primary heat source to bake steam into the turbine from (3)

The power plant control room will be at (4), right now there's no access from (4) to (2) but I could change that easily. Dupes have access to (1) but it has to be purged to vacuum every time someone comes through the vacuum doors. Right now there's a 7x2 vacuum door between (1) and (2) that I tried to set up here, but I'm going to have to abandon that idea. It's pretty impossible to keep 4kgm3 atmosphere from moving through an airlock.

I was thinking I could use a liquid lock, but the only liquids that won't vaporize with 1500c metals being moved through them are going to be problematic for other reasons.

I was thinking I could use a conveyor, but I haven't thought of a way to cool a sweeper inside that hostile atmosphere.

Ideas?

 

edit: wider view

CkInIlL.png

one thing I could do is build a purge chamber that depressurizes the H2 when I'm repacking the storage, and then pumps it back in when ready. But this will require rejecting at least a little heat into my cooling plant.

So far my that's my best thought.

I assume it's intentional that your steam turbine will be deleting steam?

Dupes in exosuits are able to grab and move iron at near liquid temps. You can have them load it into a conveyor loader that's cooled with a corner cooling setup and have the bulk of the cooling handled whilst on the rail by having it loop around the steam room (use cooling fins for best results). With steam turbines you'll get better cooling if you build a pumped steam loop and heat the steam above the turbine as well as it will be a lower average temp.

5 hours ago, JonnyMonroe said:

(..) load it into a conveyor loader that's cooled with a corner cooling setup and have the bulk of the cooling handled whilst on the rail by having it loop around the steam room (..)

The main purpose of this project is to be in very precise control of how much heat I waste in my powerplant. I should heat my steam to a precise temperature using automation in order to accomplish that, that's why i'm using contact heaters. Using a conveyor to heat steam is extremely effective just not easy to control.

I do think though that there's a flaw, I've made myself dependent on storage compactors. I don't really need to cool the molten metal with magma, that idea is a bit too cute. I might have to rethink the whole design.

Only way I can think of to move superhot objects safely is gravity. I don't know if sweeper arms heat up based on direct contact from, but it might be possible to use them in a vacuum to move the super hot material if they transfer heat through atmosphere. Then once the objects are out of the area flood in gas to cool down the sweep arms from the heat they generate their own. I don't think that's particularly practical though given how conveyors work all together, though.

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