Nuclear Reactor

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Revision as of 16:05, 2 May 2012 by Two (talk | contribs) (→‎One time items: Clarified that the reactor uses up many ice blocks and only a single one per tick)
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Nuclear Reactor
Nuclear Reactor ig.png
Grid Nuclear Reactor.png
Properties
Type Generator
Tool Grid Wrench.png




Stackable Yes (64)






Technical Details
UU Cost {{{uu_cost}}}
First appearance ?
ID IC2:{{{id}}}


The Nuclear Reactor is a generator that produces EU by slowly breaking down refined Uranium Cells. As cells decay inside the reactor they produce heat. Heat may be removed by cooling methods. If cooling is insufficient, the reactor will gradually overheat and eventually explode, violently.

Copper cable is sufficient for basic reactors, advanced reactors will require gold or even HV cable.

Each cell will last 10,000 seconds (~2h 47min) inside the reactor, providing at least 10EU/t power (at least 2 million EU per cell).

You can enlarge the space of your reactor by placing up to 6 additional Reactor Chambers directly adjacent to the reactor.

With IndustrialCraft², the reactor system is fully recoded! Instead of lame Uranium refining, you now have to make a good setup for your reactor with all the reactor stuff you can find in the navigation. But one thing wasn't completely changed: nuclear meltdowns!

Helpful forum post


Recipe


Grid Advanced Alloy.png
Grid Reactor Chamber.png
Grid Advanced Alloy.png
Grid Advanced Circuit.png
Grid Generator.png
Grid Advanced Circuit.png
Grid Advanced Alloy.png
Grid Reactor Chamber.png
Grid Advanced Alloy.png
Grid Nuclear Reactor.png



Usage


Reactors are complex and not for the faint of heart. A bad design can suddenly replace your house with a nice new crater.


Reactor Terms[edit]

Here are some of the terms often used when describing a reactor and its design.

Heat - The reactor itself and its components can all store heat. If heat levels gets too high, then components will melt, and there will be a risk of a reactor meltdown (see "Violent explosion").
Cooling - Cooling is provided by internal components like a Cooling Cell and the outside environment like water. Cooling is needed to counteract the effects of heat, preventing a meltdown.
Reactor Tick - A reactor 'ticks' once every second. This is when heat, EU generation, and cooling is calculated.
Uranium Pulse - Pulses occur every reactor tick, each pulse produces heat and EU. Uranium Cells normally pulse once per tick, but will produce one 'bonus' pulse per neighboring cell (This does not cause the cell to deplete faster, essentially generating bonus energy, but also extra heat).
Breeder Reactor - A type of reactor design that re-enriches Depleted Isotope Cells into full Uranium Cells, but produces little power.
Reactor Design - The pattern in which components are placed within a reactor. A good design can give you nice, safe energy, and a bad design can spontaneously crater-ize your home and its contents (see "Violent explosion").
Full Cycle - The time it takes for a full Uranium Cell to be used up. 10,000 reactor ticks, or 2 hours 47 mins.
Cooldown Period - The time required for an inactive reactor to cool all the excess heat it has collected.
Reactor Hull - This is where heat goes when it's not stored in a component. The maximum heat storage is 10,000, but it can be increased with Reactor Chambers and Integrated Reactor Plating.
Reactor Class - All reactor designs can be a class like "Mark-I-O ED" or "Mark-III EB" which gives an indication of how well a design will perform.
Reactor Efficiency - The average number of pulses per Uranium Cell. (efficiency = pulses / cells)
The more Uranium Cells that are placed next to each other, the higher the efficiency, but also the higher the risk.
Violent explosion - Also known as "reactor meltdown" or "BOOM". What happens if a reactor overheats over it's limit duo to overheating. Leaves behind a crater worth being given a name. Note that serious nuclear engineers always place signs next to such craters to remember how it was created. Like "First reactor setup that was almost working as intended" or "Probably should add explosion resistant walls to the next setup".

Reactor Components[edit]

A list of the various components that can be used within a reactor.

Main components[edit]

Grid Reactor Chamber.png Reactor Chamber
Placed adjacent to the reactor block, each additional chamber provides 6 additional cell slots, +1000 hull strength, and 2 cooling per reactor tick. Note that as a reactor only uses water blocks for cooling in the 3x3x3 grid around the central reactor, adding a Reactor Chamber will only add a total of +1 cooling to a water cooled reactor, as it occupies one of the possible water cooling spots.

Uranium components[edit]

Grid Uranium Cell.png Uranium Cell
The main fuel for the reactor. Every reactor tick, each cell produces a single generating pulse on its own and an additional generating pulse for each adjacent Uranium Cell, causing a "chain reaction" the more Uranium Cells are placed right next to each other and therefore increasing the efficiency of each single cell. Each such pulse produces a specific amount of heat (depending on the surrounding components) and 200 EU (10EU/t). A cell lasts 10,000 reactor ticks (2 hours 47 minutes), and generates 2,000,000 EU total multiplied by the amount of other cells constantly around it, thus up to 10,000,000 EU can be generated from a single cell constantly surrounded by 4 others. When depleted, Uranium Cells may become Near-Depleted Uranium Cells or be lost.
Grid Near-Depleted Uranium Cell.png Near-Depleted Uranium Cell
The 'empty' state of a Uranium Cell; these can be crafted manually, or have a chance of appearing when a Uranium Cell is depleted within a reactor. They produce 1 heat each reactor tick, but do not generate any EU.
Grid Depleted Isotope Cell.png Depleted Isotope Cell
A depleted Uranium Cell mixed with coal dust. When placed next to a Uranium Cell inside a reactor it recharges into a full cell after some time. The time it takes to recharge a depleted cell depends on the amount of surrounding Uranium Cells and the heat the reactor is operating at. The higher the reactor's temperature is, the faster the cells will replenish. Isotope cells produce 1 heat but do not generate any EU, the will however cause adjacent Uranium Cells to pulse an additional time. This additional pulse is used up to re-enrich the Depleted Isotope Cell and will therefore not generate any EU, but it will cause the pulsing Uranium Cell to generate additional heat as usual.
Grid Re-Enriched Uranium Cell.png Re-Enriched Uranium Cell
The fully charged state of an isotope cell, it will continue to produce only 1 heat and no EU but it will no longer react with adjacent Uranium Cells. Combined with another coal dust, it will become a brand new Uranium Cell.

Cooling components[edit]

Grid Cooling Cell.png Cooling Cell
Each cooling cell may absorb 10,000 heat before melting and will cool down itself by 1 point of heat each reactor tick. Unless overheated Cooling Cells are not used up, which makes them the main cooling component inside the reactor.
Grid Integrated Reactor Plating.png Integrated Reactor Plating
Plating will distribute heat from an adjacent Uranium Cells into surrounding cooling components, which allows to increase the amount of cooling that can be applied directly to an Uranium Cell. Heat distributed in this way can only travel a distance of one slot, possible further platings will only store the heat but not distribute it. Plating also increases the reactor's hull strength by 100 points and can store up to 10,000 heat itself before it melts, if it is unable to direct it into any other cooling component. Integrated Reactor Platings will cool down itself by 0.1 point of heat each reactor tick.
Grid Integrated Heat Disperser.png Integrated Heat Disperser
These components will attempt to balance out the levels of heat within the reactor hull, any adjacent component capable of storing heat and itself. During each tick a disperser can exchange up to 25 heat with the reactor hull and up to 6 heat with each of the surrounding components. Note that if all Uranium Cells in a reactor are next to at least one cooling component and therefore no longer emit heat to the reactor itself, an Integrated Heat Dispenser is required to utilize the reactor's own cooling. In addition, as this component is able to exchange heat with the reactor itself, it can as well be used to "move" heat from one place to another inside the reactor (using the reactor's own heat storage as a medium), if for example the space around an Uranium Cell is not sufficient to completely cool the heat it emits.

One time items[edit]

Grid Water Bucket.png Water Bucket
When a reactor's hull has more than 4000 heat, it will evaporate the water inside the bucket, reducing the heat instantly by 250 points and leaving the empty bucket in the slot. This can be used to manually adjust the reactor's temperature or as a hint that the reactor is overheating.
Ice Block
If a reactor's hull has more that 300 heat, it will evaporate ice blocks each tick, reducing the heat instantly by 300 points per block evaporated until it is below the limit of 300 heat. Note that only one ice block per reactor slot is used up per tick, therefore the total amount of heat that can be reduced per tick is limited by the slots occupied by Ice Blocks. Thus even if a reactor is filled up with stacks of ice, it still can blow up violently. Ice blocks can be used to manually cool down a reactor, as a short-time cool-down system in extreme reactor setups, or as an indicator that the reactor is building up heat.
Grid Lava Bucket.png Lava Bucket
Placing a lava bucket inside a reactor will instantly increase the reactor's hull heat by 2,000 points, leaving the empty bucket in the slot. This is useful for 'breeder' type reactors to heat-up the reactor to increase the speed at which Depleted Isotope Cell recharge.

Heating and Cooling[edit]

Almost every component and the reactor itself can store heat in an effort to stave off a disaster. It is up to the cooling systems (and you) to get rid of this accumulated heat before the reactor cannot take any more.

The reactor's own storage (known as the reactor hull) starts off at 10,000, but that can be increased by up to 6 extra chambers (+1000 each) or placing plating into the reactor (+100). If the reactor hull reaches 50% of its maximum heat storage, then nearby water will begin to evaporate, and at 85% the reactor has a chance of removing itself from existence... violently.

Heat stored in components will be safely tucked away from the hull, but it will need time for the cooling systems to quench it all.

The most common source of heat is uranium cells, which will produce heat for each pulse they perform. The amount of heat depends on how many cooling components (Cooling Cell, Integrated Reactor Plating, Integrated Heat Disperser) are adjacent to the cell:

No. of Components Heat Generated
0 10 per pulse into the reactor hull
1 10 per pulse into component
2 8 per pulse, 4 for each component
3 6 per pulse, 2 for each component
4 4 per pulse, 1 for each component

More cooling systems around a uranium cell mean less overall heat to deal with, making the reactor safer, but it also reduces the potential amount of EU a cell can produce. Risk vs. Reward.

Depleted Isotope cells only produce 1 heat per tick themselves, but they still react with adjacent Uranium Cells and make them pulse additional times.

Near-Depleted Uranium Cells and Re-Enriched Uranium Cells produce 1 heat per tick.

There are several ways to reduce a reactor's heat each tick:

Outside Source Cooling provided
The reactor itself 1 heat
Each reactor chamber added 2 heat per chamber
Water blocks within a 3x3x3 area* 1 heat per block
Air 'blocks' within a 3x3x3 area** 0.25 per block

* Both still and flowing water count.

** Torches, Redstone, and similar items won't count.

Internal Source Cooling provided
Cooling Cell 1 heat***
Integrated Reactor Plating 0.1 heat***
Ice blocks (single use) 300 heat per block
Water Buckets (single use) 250 heat per bucket

*** Cooling only occurs if the component in question has any heat stored.

The maximum outside cooling possible is 33 (reactor, 6 chambers and 20 water blocks).

If the amount of cooling available is less than the amount of heat produced then the reactor will gradually collect heat. There are various ways to deal with this:

  • Make a design that only has a slight amount of excess heat so that even when the Uranium Cells are used up the heat levels are still not dangerous.
  • Manually drop Ice blocks and/or Water buckets into the reactor.
  • Apply Redstone current to the reactor (or one of its chambers), causing it to stop generating heat and EU for as long as the Redstone current is active.
    • An overheating reactor can be detected by placing redstone dust on top of wood blocks close to the reactor and sending a redstone signal through it; when the reactor heats up past 40%, the wood will burn, breaking the circuit. If this circuit's output is inverted and routed back to the reactor (not on wood blocks, to ensure the segment after the inverter is not destroyed!), it can serve as an automated shutdown / alarm circuit.

Heat management for a 'Breeder' type reactor is different. Breeders work best when running hot, so it's best to make a design that has exactly the same heat and cooling amount, then manually boost the heat by adding lava buckets, removing cooling, or temporarily adding extra uranium cells.

Reactors will emit smoke particles when warm and fire particles when hot. Be careful when using lava buckets, as the 2000 heat goes directly into the hull, and the heat dispersers need time to pull it into the cooling systems.

Environmental Effects of Reactor Heat[edit]

As reactors heat up, they will start having detrimental effects on their immediate surroundings. Each additional chamber increases the threshold by 1000 heat, to a maximum of +6000 with 6 chambers. Each piece of hull plating futher increases the heat threshold by 100.

The exact heat effects for reactors are:

% of max hull heat Environmental effect
40% Flammable blocks within a 5x5x5 cube have a chance of burning.
50% Water blocks within a 5x5x5 cube (both sources and flowing) will have a chance of evaporating.
70% Entities within a 7x7x7 cube (instead of a 3x3x3 cube) will get hurt from the radiation exposure.
85% Blocks within a 5x5x5 cube have a chance of burning or turning into lava ('moving' lava only, no source blocks).
100% What environment? That hole in the ground?

Reactor Classification[edit]

All reactor designs fall into a set of pre-defined categories. This makes it easier to see, at a glance, how effective a design can be when either looking up designs on the IC forums or posting a design yourself.

Mark I[edit]

Mark I reactors generate no excess heat each reactor tick and thus are safe to use continuously for as long as you supply Uranium. Mark Is tend have a low efficiency, but that's the price of a completely safe reactor.

Mark Is have two sub-classes: Mark I-I for design that do not rely in outside cooling in anyway and Mark I-O for those that do.

Mark II[edit]

Mark II designs produce a small amount of excess heat and will need to be given a cool down period eventually to prevent the hull reaching 85% maximum heat or melting component. A Mark II must complete at least one full cycle before encountering heat problems.

The sub-class for Mark IIs denote how many cycles the design can run before reaching critical heat levels. For example Mark II-3 will need a cool down period after running 3 cycles in a row. Mark II s that can run 16 times or more get the special sub-class 'E' (Mark II-E) for almost being a Mark I.

Mark III[edit]

Mark III reactors tend to have an emphasis on efficiency at the cost of safety. Mark IIIs are unable to complete a full cycle without going into meltdown and thus need to be shutdown mid-cycle in order to deal with the high amount of excess heat. This can be done manually or by using Redstone.

Mark IIIs have the additional condition that they must run at least 10% of a cycle (16 mins 40 secs) before reaching critical heat or losing any components.

Mark IV[edit]

Mark IVs still have to run at least 10% of a cycle, just like Mark IIIs. The difference being that Mark IVs are allowed to lose components to overheating, and that must be replaced before the reactor goes critical.

Mark V[edit]

Mark Vs are for those who want to squeeze every last scrap of EU from their uranium cells; they cannot run long without needing a cool down period. You'd better have great Redstone timer skills, or you'll never be able to turn your back on these things.

Additional Suffixes[edit]

As well as being Mark I to V, reactor designs also have one or more suffixes to better inform people about their performance.

Single Use Coolants
A reactor that relies on a supply of ice and/or water buckets in order to maintain its classification should be suffixed with '-SUC'.
Efficiency
To calculate efficiency, take the number of uranium pulses a design makes per tick and divide it by the number of uranium cells it possesses.
The number provided will show the efficiency rating a design has:
Number Rating
Exactly 1 EE
Greater than 1 but less than 2 ED
2 or greater but less than 3 EC
3 or greater but less than 4 EB
4 or greater EA
Breeder
This suffix is for designs that also recharges isotope cells. Isotope cells charge up faster when the reactor runs hot, so heat management is important. There are three breeder types:
  • Negative-Breeders slowly lose heat over time and will need heat to be added manually, or they can be left for a safe slow way to recharge isotopes.
  • Equal-Breeders have exactly the same heat generation as they do cooling ability and usually only require a user to boost the reactor's heat level manually at the beginning.
  • Positive-Breeders gain heat over time and will require more precise cool down management for the reactor to remain hot.
Reactors whose sole purpose is to recharge cells may not even have a 'Mark' classification and are simply called Breeders instead, with the efficiency/SUC suffix added.
Heat Ticks Required
0-2,999 40,000
3,000-5,999 20,000
6,000-8,999 10,000
Over 9000! 5,000

Example Classifications[edit]

Mark I-O EE
A reactor design that can run continuously, but relies on outside cooling and only produces one pulse for each Uranium Cell.
Mark II-1 ED Positive-Breeder
A reactor with recharging capabilities that can only run one full cycle before needing a cool down.
Mark II-2 EC
A reactor design that can run two full cycles before needing a cool down period, producing at least 2 pulses per Uranium per reactor tick on average.
Mark II-E-SUC EC
A reactor that can run at least 16 times before needing a cool down, relying on a supply of ice or water and has average efficiency.
Breeder EA
A heat-neutral reactor designed for the sole purpose of recharging Isotope Cells. Each Uranium Cell is capable of charging 3 or more Isotope Cells.

Tips and Tricks[edit]

Here are a few tips and things to look out for when using a reactor.

  • There is a Thermometer add-on on the IC forum that can be useful for those who want to monitor heat levels closely.
  • Redstone timers can turn even Mark Vs into self regulating-reactors, but if you're not the Redstone equivalent of "The One", then you might want to make use of a Redstone enhancing mod, like RedPower, for example.
  • Heat Dispersers can only draw 6 heat out of a component per reactor tick, so look for components that seem to be holding more heat than the others and try to fix the problem.
  • While the reactor hull's maximum heat tolerance can be increased, all other components are fixed at 10,000. So even though a reactor can survive 10,000+ heat, Heat Dispersers will still pull that heat into components and melt them all.
  • A math trick to calculate the number of pulses (P) for complex (i.e. Mark IV or Mark V) reactors is to multiply the number of uranium cells (U) by 5 and subtract the number of sides of uranium cells not touching other uranium cells (S) so P = 5 * U - S. So a Mark V reactor (9x6 uranium cells) would make 5 * (9 * 6) - 2 * (9 + 6) pulses = 240 pulses (and 2400 EU/t which would explode even HV cables and HV transformers, and 2400 heat per second which would explode the reactor in less than a minute (i tested it yesterday).
  • It is possible to use buildcraft with a nuclear reactor by placing pipe instead of a reactor chamber at one side of the main reactor block. This can be used to pump ice into the reactor from a chest continuously. Ice can be produced with pumps over infinite water sources adjacent to compressors (creating snowballs) feeding into another compressor which turns snowballs to ice, but it requires about 1400 EU per ice block, and may not be practical.

GUI


This is the new GUI (fully upgraded with 6 additional Reactor Chambers):


























Don't think about using them as a mad scientist's large chest; a reactor will spit out any item that is unrelated to its function. (Other than empty buckets.)