Jump to content

Proposed idea for pipe thermal conductivity


Recommended Posts

Here's my idea, it is pretty simple, straight forward, and better approximates reality without requiring a lot of calculations.

1) Revert recent thermal conductivity hacks in recent builds back to how it was before. The old mechanics seemed to work well enough in most situations. The recent hack of averaging conductivity is completely non-physical, makes no sense, and leads to a lot of unintended side effects.

2) replace regular pipes with rock pipes. Made out of any material except refined or raw metals. Rock pipes have zero thermal conductivity and do not interact thermally with anything.

3) replace insulated pipes with metal pipes. Made out of raw or refined metal. Metal pipes have zero thermal resistance, their contents are in direct thermal contact with their surroundings. If empty, they take on the temperature of their surroundings.

Most pipes can be made with rock and will save a lot of CPU power not having to deal with their heat transfer calculations. When you do want to make a radiator, use metal pipes, whose conductivity is high enough that you can just ignore its thermal resistance and simplify the calculations to just the interactions between the fluid and the environment. Bam!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like where your heading.

But 3 kinds of pipe would be better like now for color coding and our use cases. There should be some "normal" pipes, "radiant" and "insulated" but it makes more sense to base their properties/type on their material:

-"normal" pipes are made of stones ( the tungsten/wolframite normal pipes should vanish anyway if we get radiant ones as a type)

-"radiant" pipes are made of (refined) metals

-"insulated" pipes are made of abysalite or use some abysalite + an other building material maybe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, QuantumPion said:

Here's my idea, it is pretty simple, straight forward, and better approximates reality without requiring a lot of calculations.

1) Revert recent thermal conductivity hacks in recent builds back to how it was before. The old mechanics seemed to work well enough in most situations. The recent hack of averaging conductivity is completely non-physical, makes no sense, and leads to a lot of unintended side effects.

2) replace regular pipes with rock pipes. Made out of any material except refined or raw metals. Rock pipes have zero thermal conductivity and do not interact thermally with anything.

3) replace insulated pipes with metal pipes. Made out of raw or refined metal. Metal pipes have zero thermal resistance, their contents are in direct thermal contact with their surroundings. If empty, they take on the temperature of their surroundings.

Most pipes can be made with rock and will save a lot of CPU power not having to deal with their heat transfer calculations. When you do want to make a radiator, use metal pipes, whose conductivity is high enough that you can just ignore its thermal resistance and simplify the calculations to just the interactions between the fluid and the environment. Bam!

1) Totally agree it's a physical aberration....:?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, QuantumPion said:

Here's my idea, it is pretty simple, straight forward, and better approximates reality without requiring a lot of calculations.

1) Revert recent thermal conductivity hacks in recent builds back to how it was before. The old mechanics seemed to work well enough in most situations. The recent hack of averaging conductivity is completely non-physical, makes no sense, and leads to a lot of unintended side effects.

2) replace regular pipes with rock pipes. Made out of any material except refined or raw metals. Rock pipes have zero thermal conductivity and do not interact thermally with anything.

3) replace insulated pipes with metal pipes. Made out of raw or refined metal. Metal pipes have zero thermal resistance, their contents are in direct thermal contact with their surroundings. If empty, they take on the temperature of their surroundings.

Most pipes can be made with rock and will save a lot of CPU power not having to deal with their heat transfer calculations. When you do want to make a radiator, use metal pipes, whose conductivity is high enough that you can just ignore its thermal resistance and simplify the calculations to just the interactions between the fluid and the environment. Bam!

Wouldn't you replace regular pipes with metal for zero thermal resistance and insulated pipes with stone for zero thermal conductivity? I mean, its an interesting suggestion, I just think you're backwards.  Insulated pipes, by definition, resist thermal transfer. That's the whole point of insulating them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the ideas here, but there should still be downsides to pumping 99 degree water through your base uninsulated. Right now it's a bit TOO easy to fix (abysallite op) but at least you have to think about it. If all stone pipes had zero thermal conductivity, you'd lose that challenge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

99 degree water inside "good insulation" should be possible. (Another temperature for "max" heat safe water to pump would make no sense when water condenses at 99 degree.)

But what should "good insulation" mean ingame wise, and how much should it cost opportunity wise. (400 kg abysalite for a pipe segement seems like a good trade off)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

7 minutes ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

99 degree water inside "good insulation" should be possible. (Another temperature for "max" heat safe water to pump would make no sense when water condenses at 99 degree.)

But what should "good insulation" mean ingame wise, and how much should it cost opportunity wise. (400 kg abysalite for a pipe segement seems like a good trade off)

Agreed, but right now (pre ranch 2) you don't even need to use insulated abysalite. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Please be aware that the content of this thread may be outdated and no longer applicable.

×
  • Create New...