Tamed and fully automated Gold Volcano.

[Kasuha]

This took me a while to get working and it's still more complicated than it really neds but it works and since the main coolant is polluted water it uses slightly less power for cooling.

The volcano erupts 470 kg of gold (per eruption) at 2600 C. The task was to keep the thing contained so my dupes don't carry hot gold around and of course to make sure the machine doesn't break.

The volcano sits in vacuum and the main cooling pool is filled with water. The worst that could happen is that some of the water turns to steam but thanks to cold water level it would turn back to water eventually. But that doesn't even happen.

The sweeper arm and the loader are submerged in 300 kg/tile of water - enough to keep them cool, but not enough to get them flooded. I believe even much less would suffice too.

The conveyor rail meanders through both cooling pools so when the gold gets out of the pool, it's at safe temperature. Later I realized that most of that meandering is not even necessary as the most radical heat exchange happens when the conveyor passes through the metal plates.

The primary coolant is polluted water, cooled by dedicated aquatuner located in my power faciity. The heat is displaced into another polluted water which is then sent to fertilizer makers. Circulation is controlled by liquid shutoff and temp sensor - when the temperature gets above 5 C, the shutoff opens and lets cold polluted water from the aquatuner into the pool while the pump fills the pipe with warmed coolant.

Overlays follow:

Spoiler

And here's the thing in action:

Spoiler

When the gold drops to the bottom of the pool, it's already solid at about 800 C.

The arm immediately grabs it and feeds it into the loader but thankfully it doesn't warm up more than about 2 C over the course of whole eruption so it's safe. When it gets to the loader, the gold is already at 400 C.

Then the gold rides the cooling circuit. To my surprise, the most rapid heat loss happens in the metal plate. Notice the gold packet is still around 100 C when entering it, and then it's at 6 C when it gets out. I wonder if there isn't some kind of heat exchange bug hiding. Notice also the gold on conveyor passing the hot blob at the bottom gets some of its heat but that's no problem and it loses that in no time.

When the gold gets to the receptacle it's at very safe temperature. I may build some longer rail later, for now I am fine with dupes picking the gold from the receptacle and delivering it to compactors manually.

 

[SkunkMaster]

Nice little setup, but am i seeing it right, you "only" get the metal from the volcano?

[DyingCrow]

Very nice, compact  and simple contraption.

[Kasuha]

6 minutes ago, SkunkMaster said:

Nice little setup, but am i seeing it right, you "only" get the metal from the volcano?

If you mean I could be turning oil to natural gas with it, no, I don't do that. So far I have way too much power available I'm not even drawing my natural gas geysers, my fertilizer synthesizer room is over pressure at 33 kg/tile because the power plant doesn't need that much gas. So far I'm running on hydrogen from electrolysis, slush geyser (1 kg/s) -> fertilizer -> coal and some coal reserve, so natural gas may start being used when that coal reserve runs out but it's taking its time as I'm cycle 800+ already.

[SkunkMaster]

Just now, Kasuha said:

If you mean I could be turning oil to natural gas with it, no, I don't do that. So far I have way too much power available I'm not even drawing my natural gas geysers, my fertilizer synthesizer room is over pressure at 33 kg/tile because the power plant doesn't need that much gas. So far I'm running on hydrogen from electrolysis, slush geyser (1 kg/s) -> fertilizer -> coal and some coal reserve, so natural gas may start being used when that coal reserve runs out but it's taking its time as I'm cycle 800+ already.

You could also make steam, play around with turbines?

[Kasuha]

Here's my save file, take a look if you want. It's already in sustainable state I believe, but there are still many things that could be done. For instance something about the slimelung everywhere 

Laboratory.sav

[Neotuck]

Just now, SkunkMaster said:

You could also make steam, play around with turbines?

I think the goal is to remove heat from metal so it's safe to build with.  And the heat from gold volcanoes is very little compared to normal volcanoes and is hardly worth the effort to setup a turbine 

[SkunkMaster]

Just now, Neotuck said:

I think the goal is to remove heat from metal so it's safe to build with.  And the heat from gold volcanoes is very little compared to normal volcanoes and is hardly worth the effort to setup a turbine 

you can still cool the gold to the point where you can remove it, just with using water. Not hating on the build here, this atleast showcases how to get the metal from a volcano, in a somewhat easy way.

Just sayin, there is more to be gained then just the raw produce from the volcano, as the thermal energy is entirely lost in that setup.

[Neotuck]

I do have one question about the pump in the picture @Kasuha 

I know the temp sensor controls the cold PW coming in but what controls the warm PW going out? I see no automation with the pump so how are you controlling it?

8 minutes ago, SkunkMaster said:

Just sayin, there is more to be gained then just the raw produce from the volcano, as the thermal energy is entirely lost in that setup.

and I'm just saying a steam turbine isn't one of them

[Kasuha]

1 minute ago, SkunkMaster said:

You could also make steam, play around with turbines?

I think the volcano has way too little power for that to be worth it. Harnessing all energy from one eruption could create about 180 kg of steam usable for the turbine. The turbine would deplete that way before next eruption (not talking about dormant period), I don't see a way to make it sustain the production. Plus I have plenty of power anyway.

[SkunkMaster]

Just now, Kasuha said:

I think the volcano has way too little power for that to be worth it. Harnessing all energy from one eruption could create about 180 kg of steam usable for the turbine. The turbine would deplete that way before next eruption (not talking about dormant period), I don't see a way to make it sustain the production. Plus I have plenty of power anyway.

No need to make it a sustainable system, more of a relief or addition to what is already established, when it is running. 

 

[Kasuha]

3 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

I know the temp sensor controls the cold PW coming in but what controls the warm PW going out? I see no automation with the pump so how are you controlling it?

The pump is feeding pipe towards the aquatuner and the product goes back through the pipe that ends with shutoff. So technically the temp sensor switches them all. The shutoff is at the end of the pipe to keep the pipe full, the liquid entering it is slightly above 5 C (I haven't seen it reach 7 C yet) and what's coming back is around -9 C.

[Neotuck]

Just now, Kasuha said:

The pump is feeding pipe towards the aquatuner and the product goes back through the pipe that ends with shutoff. So technically the temp sensor switches them all. The shutoff is at the end of the pipe to keep the pipe full, the liquid entering it is slightly above 5 C (I haven't seen it reach 7 C yet) and what's coming back is around -9 C.

ah, so it's a closed loop 

[Kasuha]

3 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

ah, so it's a closed loop 

Yeah, it's just a bit long and gets entangled with other circuitry near the aquatuner so I didn't try to post a picture at first.

[Lifegrow]

I'm confused - isn't this just a re-hashed version of what I posted here :

Only main differences being that mine is cooled with primarily wheezeworts, (in my build the aquatuner is only being used for the sweeper arm/loader). I also opted to solidify the metal on a surface, rather than delete the heat by dripping it into liquid.

 

[travaldofan]

7 hours ago, Kasuha said:

If you mean I could be turning oil to natural gas with it, no, I don't do that. So far I have way too much power available I'm not even drawing my natural gas geysers, my fertilizer synthesizer room is over pressure at 33 kg/tile because the power plant doesn't need that much gas. So far I'm running on hydrogen from electrolysis, slush geyser (1 kg/s) -> fertilizer -> coal and some coal reserve, so natural gas may start being used when that coal reserve runs out but it's taking its time as I'm cycle 800+ already.

i am at cycle 380 and didn't even placed natural gas generator yet, smart battery coal generator is so good

[Kasuha]

4 hours ago, Lifegrow said:

isn't this just a re-hashed version of what I posted here

Technically everything is re-hash of everything else since we all use the same tools. But I definitely did not use your solution as a basis or inspiration. Dropping the gold into the cooling liquid was the starting point for me, I did consider "dry cooling" you use but decided against it since I believe it stops cooling when it turns solid.

Also, according to my math, Wheezeworts would not cut it for me. Theoretically I need the aquatuner running at about 3 kg/s for the active period to keep the temperature stable. In reality it's less but I think it's because of some heat bugs. Still it gets pretty heavy use with every eruption.

[Oozinator]

5 hours ago, Lifegrow said:

I'm confused - isn't this just a re-hashed version of what I posted here :

Sometimes great minds share same source of inspiration and that results in similar inventions..
 

[Lifegrow]

29 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

Technically everything is re-hash of everything else since we all use the same tools. But I definitely did not use your solution as a basis or inspiration. Dropping the gold into the cooling liquid was the starting point for me, I did consider "dry cooling" you use but decided against it since I believe it stops cooling when it turns solid.

Also, according to my math, Wheezeworts would not cut it for me. Theoretically I need the aquatuner running at about 3 kg/s for the active period to keep the temperature stable. In reality it's less but I think it's because of some heat bugs. Still it gets pretty heavy use with every eruption.

Hey no worries Kas, wouldn't have shared it if it was sacred to me... just found it odd considering I posted my build like 3 days ago, and you've essentially used the same method (i.e. the sweeper/loader in a bath) to do the exact same job. 

Figuring out the logistics was the main focus of my build - using sweeper arms and loaders submerged in a shallow bath was the key. Hadn't seen anyone do it before truth be told.

The cooling of the liquid metal isn't the tricky part really - you could drop it over an ice sculpture, or into a pool of fresh steamy dupe piddle - but from what I've observed in my own tinkerings; if you're dropping it directly into liquid, you're deleting heat. 

Somewhat random question, but any reason you've got tempshift plates in contact with the tank walls by the way ? Seems like you'd be losing a lot of energy by cooling into the tiles...

[Neotuck]

12 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

Somewhat random question, but any reason you've got tempshift plates in contact with the tank walls by the way ? Seems like you'd be losing a lot of energy by cooling into the tiles...

I agree, even if the tiles are made with abyssalite the tempshift plates will pull heat from them

switch to abyssalite insulated tiles to fix this

[Kasuha]

1 hour ago, Lifegrow said:

just found it odd considering I posted my build like 3 days ago, and you've essentially used the same method (i.e. the sweeper/loader in a bath) to do the exact same job

I originally tried to have it in vacuum and make sure it only picks the gold when it's cold enough but my attempts in that direction failed. Since it does exchange heat with its load, grabbing on the gold while it's still over 125 C overheats it and it also overheats the loader. The other options are cooling with gas which gets pretty hard since there's a pool of molten gold that forms on the volcano base with each eruption, and cooling it with liquid.  I did not copy your approach, we just independently discovered the same thing. If I figure out how to reliably detect the eruption, I may give the sweeper in vacuum another try.

1 hour ago, Lifegrow said:

from what I've observed in my own tinkerings; if you're dropping it directly into liquid, you're deleting heat.

I'm not that sure. Maybe. I did not pay much attention to it. Gold has about 30 times less heat capacity than water and you drop a few kg into tile containing 1000 kg. It looks more likely there's some heat lost when the load drives the rail, just on passing from behind the metal plate back to water it loses about 80 C in one second when it's already pretty cool.

1 hour ago, Lifegrow said:

Somewhat random question, but any reason you've got tempshift plates in contact with the tank walls by the way ? Seems like you'd be losing a lot of energy by cooling into the tiles...

Tempshift plates only act as another means of heat transfer and a bit of heat buffer. To my experience they don't lose any heat - yes, I need to cool them down after installing them into the pool but once they get their working temperature, there's no heat lost on them. The purpose of tempshift plates is to accelerate dissipation of heat from the molten metal. Without tempshift plates, each tile (water, metal plate) is in contact with four another tiles. With tempshift plates, each tile of water is connected with four other tiles and five tempshift plates (if it was just water at least; metal plates can't have a tempshift plate on the background so there's less of them at edges). They form a double-linked chain so the heat dissipation is about twice as fast. 

[0xFADE]

Very impressive stuff.  I guess I don't have to worry about the heat output of a metal volcano as much as I thought.

[Lifegrow]

6 hours ago, Kasuha said:

Tempshift plates only act as another means of heat transfer and a bit of heat buffer. To my experience they don't lose any heat - yes, I need to cool them down after installing them into the pool but once they get their working temperature, there's no heat lost on them. The purpose of tempshift plates is to accelerate dissipation of heat from the molten metal. Without tempshift plates, each tile (water, metal plate) is in contact with four another tiles. With tempshift plates, each tile of water is connected with four other tiles and five tempshift plates (if it was just water at least; metal plates can't have a tempshift plate on the background so there's less of them at edges). They form a double-linked chain so the heat dissipation is about twice as fast. 

Yeah this is all well and good Kas, but you're missing the fact that tempshift plates actually transfer heat to non-insulated tiles now, even if made of abyssalite. The way you've set this up, you're pissing away energy to the outside environment, maybe that's why your aquatuner is so frequently active; making this inefficient : 

You could still use a 5-long single row of tempshift plates on the bottom side of your metal tile "catcher", and 6 in the gap above - any more in that build will be transferring heat AWAY from your cooled water, and into the outside of your build.

 

[Kasuha]

1 minute ago, Lifegrow said:

The way you've set this up, you're pissing away energy to the outside environment

I don't think so, the abyssalite tiles are cold alright but their heat transfer with outside that has no tempshift plates should still be as abysmal as ever. The volcano was in ice biome, that's why it's still cold outside. So again, I cooled it once and now it doesn't need any more energy until I change the working temperature.

I definitely did not notice the aquatuner ever taking action between eruptions or during dormant periods.

14 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

maybe that's why your aquatuner is so frequently active

Gold has 0.129 J/g/K heat capacity. With 470.4 kg per eruption and 2626.9 C cooled to 5 C, I need to get rid of 159101 kJ per eruption.

A gram of polluted water cooled by aquatuner by 14 C gets rid of 84 J. That means I need to pass 1894 kg of polluted water per eruption to make equal heat transfer.

It definitely runs less, so I am not even remotely complaining about it "being frequently active".

... actually according to how little the aquatuner runs, there must be some serious heat deleting involved, though definitely not intended by design.

[Lifegrow]

14 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

I don't think so, the abyssalite tiles are cold alright but their heat transfer with outside that has no tempshift plates should still be as abysmal as ever. The volcano was in ice biome, that's why it's still cold outside. So again, I cooled it once and now it doesn't need any more energy until I change the working temperature.

I definitely did not notice the aquatuner ever taking action between eruptions or during dormant periods.

The fact that it's an ice biome doesn't change the fact you're losing energy - you're simply transferring it from your cooled water tank, to the (ideally -30ish conditions) of an ice biome.

I.e. your 5 degree cooled tank is warming up the ice biome.

Was just bringing it to your attention incase you missed the change.