Steam Turbine For Dummies (Rocketry)

[DuckBoy]

I found a simple steam turbine build finally.  Rather than relying on automated doors to push steam down, I drip 1g hydrogen at the bottom of a shaft.  2 high pressure vents is enough to keep a steam turbine up at 90-95% duty cycle.  I'm probably not the first to discover the hydrogen drip design, but it feels super elegant to me.  I call this the HydroSteam TurbDucken (HydroSteam TD). 

Pool of hydrogen below the metal flooring is just heat.  Feel free to fill it with radiant pipes full of 500 degree petroleum or magma with a door seal and automation or what have you. 

Left ear is simplest version, but will fail after tens to hundreds of cycles when there is enough hydrogen to bust your outer tiles.  Right ear is start of a hydrogen airlock.  You can use that for access with dupes or seal it off with clocked doors to crush hydrogen out of existence.  (I don't think single door shown is sufficient to crush hydrogen)

Positioning of the vents is critical.  The longer the shaft down, the more guaranteed upward movement of the hydrogen, and thus the more efficient the system overall (but the taller it becomes).  Design shown is the smallest I've been able to make with good efficiency. 

Remember to split the gas before the gas valve.  Even though they're only pushing out 1g at a time, gaps in the pipes will slow your efficiency.

 

WARNING: if you accidentally place vents too low, such that hydrogen can float sideways into the bottom of the turbine, everything will immediately come to a halt. 

WARNING: if you go above 20kg of steam, hydrogen will stop flowing.  Aim for 15kg.  (You will want to calculate open cells and fill with water before heating, or your liquid vent will go overpressure.  You can drop a liquid vent into one of the hydrogen ears to pour in water if you have too little.  Remember that the more steam in the system, the faster steam moves down, so the closer you get to 20kg, the higher the duty cycle... until it overpressures and cuts out)

I'm slightly worried I'm deleting a tiny amount of steam somewhere, maybe pros can look at it and let me know. 

 

Good Luck Noobs Like Me!

[JukedByLife]

When the turbine has tiles directly above it steam will be deleted, I would modify it to leave a gap in between the turbine and the ceiling. While this is an interesting design, I've found the trouble with turbines is generating the heat to keep them running, not in the build design. I have a video here using hydrogen to force a low-pressure zone on top of the turbine. You can use other gasses too, as long as they float on top of steam.