Condensing Steam Turbine

[Nickerooni]

@clickrush you definitely don’t let any steam past the turbines. That’s the purpose of chaining then.

@psusi if you don’t add heat between turbines, then the turbines run at higher efficiency, by just barely running. One heat source is simpler anyway.

You get it down to 2kg/s because the same 10kg/s of steam has to go through 5 turbines before you use some mechanism to recycle it. That’s a small enough volume of steam such that you don’t need door pumps. Which, was the OPs concern.

[psusi]

9 minutes ago, Nickerooni said:

if you don’t add heat between turbines, then the turbines run at higher efficiency, by just barely running. One heat source is simpler anyway.

No, because the steam coming out of the first turbine is too cold to run the second one, so you have to add more heat. You're just saying to do it by letting the heat bleed through from below, which means the steam below has to be at a higher temperature, which makes it less efficient.

10 minutes ago, Nickerooni said:

You get it down to 2kg/s because the same 10kg/s of steam has to go through 5 turbines before you use some mechanism to recycle it. That’s a small enough volume of steam such that you don’t need door pumps. Which, was the OPs concern.

Oh, you mean on average, per turbine, you are using 2kg/s.. I see.  You are still using 25 times more heat than a single turbine with 4 ports blocked.  That's a pretty insane amount of heat.

[Nickerooni]

I got this running with 250 degree steam which will run even the fifth turbineand bleed heat all the way through. On average, only one is running, so although there are 5 turbines, you can view it like it’s just one for heat consumption. Which is, as discussed many times, a Buttload of heat. A volcano will produce enough heat for 600-800W from this beast. But, no cheats!

[psusi]

23 minutes ago, Nickerooni said:

I got this running with 250 degree steam which will run even the fifth turbineand bleed heat all the way through. On average, only one is running, so although there are 5 turbines, you can view it like it’s just one for heat consumption. Which is, as discussed many times, a Buttload of heat. A volcano will produce enough heat for 600-800W from this beast. But, no cheats!

I can't believe it is at all possible to have as much heat as a turbine eats simply conducted through that many tiles with only a few degree difference between the top and bottom.  Unless the thermal conductivity of those diamond tempshift plates is infinite.  Are you sure you are not running your hot liquid pipes through the whole thing?  Or are you giving it plenty of time for the heat to work its way up while the turbines are disabled, then run them for a short burst until they consume the heat and then you have to let it spread back up again?

[Nickerooni]

Only 1 at a time, on average. The 5 turbines isn’t to get more power. It’s to reduce steam throughput so you don’t need to use door pumps.

I'll just build a realistic no cheat turbine that proves heat deletion numbers on it are justified. Better than all the other attempts . Give me a week. I have a job and a family.

[psusi]

2 hours ago, Nickerooni said:

Only 1 at a time, on average. The 5 turbines isn’t to get more power. It’s to reduce steam throughput so you don’t need to use door pumps.

I'll just build a realistic no cheat turbine that proves heat deletion numbers on it are justified. Better than all the other attempts . Give me a week. I have a job and a family.

How do you keep only 1 running at a time?  From the looks of it, as soon as the first one starts running, it should be throwing steam at the next one up and so it would start running, then the next, and so on until you get all 5 going.

[Nickerooni]

I don’t make any guarantees of only 1 running. They just tend to average out that way because it takes a while to do the heat transfer. If the incoming steam was 300-400 degrees, more would be running. But, that would be a waste.

Mostly, I’m just happy that I can keep an average of one running fairly consistently with relatively low temperature input steam. 4MDTU/s is plenty for any purposes.

[psusi]

5 minutes ago, Nickerooni said:

I don’t make any guarantees of only 1 running. They just tend to average out that way because it takes a while to do the heat transfer. If the incoming steam was 300-400 degrees, more would be running. But, that would be a waste.

Mostly, I’m just happy that I can keep an average of one running fairly consistently with relatively low temperature input steam. 4MDTU/s is plenty for any purposes.

Oh, I see... the next one won't run because the input steam is too cold.  And I guess all of the steam from the previous stage gets squashed into the tiny space between it and the next stage?  Then once it heats up it moves on?  Do you try to stop more steam from building up in the first stage before all of it has moved through the complete cycle?  You might do better if you did that.

[Nickerooni]

Nah. Eventually, it all equilibrates. When warming up, the first one runs constantly. Then, when it’s overpressure, the first two start alternating. Then, when the first two are full, the third kicks in and starts sharing the load. It looks neat. You might get a cycle in there where power production is reduced, but eventually it all equilizes and all five take turns in spits and spurts.

[psusi]

12 hours ago, Nickerooni said:

Nah. Eventually, it all equilibrates. When warming up, the first one runs constantly. Then, when it’s overpressure, the first two start alternating. Then, when the first two are full, the third kicks in and starts sharing the load. It looks neat. You might get a cycle in there where power production is reduced, but eventually it all equilizes and all five take turns in spits and spurts.

Spits and spurts doesn't sound good given the whole "spin up" mechanic.  If they spin up and down too frequently then you're wasting most of the heat and time for no power.

[Nickerooni]

When they spin up, or are spinning down, they don’t transfer steam anymore. It’s totally fine.

[psusi]

38 minutes ago, Nickerooni said:

When they spin up, or are spinning down, they don’t transfer steam anymore. It’s totally fine.

I could have sworn they did.  That's why I use a temp sensor to let the heat build up to 500 F before allowing the turbine to run, then shut it off again when it falls to 450 F.  Before I did that it seemed to just keep spinning up/down all day and could never get to fully on.

[Nickerooni]

It was like that. It’s not anymore.