Power spike on shutdown
raziel420 opened this issue ยท 6 comments
I had a reactor running (way hot, over 10k) producing around 500-750 units of power 9x9x10 in an x arangement. On shutdown the power spiked to over 1050 units/t then started dropping as the heat decreased. Bug or normal?
attached screenshots are taken within seconds of each other if you could not tell from the timestamps displayed on the next one
Definitely a bug, probably has something to do with the heat transfer system. I'll look at this when I'm revisiting the fuel/waste and heat transfer mechanics in the 0.2.x versions.
Edit: I see it in the code now. Shutting off the reactor means the reactor's temperature will drop far faster than the fuel rods' temperature, as the reactor uses a primitive heat-loss equation whereas the fuel rods use a different, somewhat more-realistic one. When the reactor is on, it reaches an equilibrium state where the heat being lost by the reactor is roughly equal to the heat added to the reactor by the fuel rods (both by radiation + normal heat transfer).
Shutting the reactor off means that the fuel rods are not generating any more radiation-heat, so the amount of heat added to the reactor per tick drops off significantly. This means the reactor's temperature will suddenly fall by a very large amount, because it loses heat faster in general.
The very large difference in heat between fuel rods and reactor means the fuel rods can transfer more heat - the heat transfer equation is "realistic" in that it's based on the difference between the fuel rods' heat and its environment. I don't track heat per-block, so that means the reactor itself.
This sudden much-larger heat transfer means the reactor suddenly begins generating more power, because, for now, the transfer of heat to the reactor via water blocks generates a substantial amount of power. This transfer more than makes up for the loss of energy derived from reactor heat loss or from radiation.
This is somewhat intentional, as it'll be useful when active cooling is added.
I'll try improving the reactor's heat-radiation equation, which should make the effect less pronounced. It's a cool effect though.
Wait, that's odd. Your screenshots say it only has 6 fuel rods (i.e. vertical columns of fuel rod blocks capped by a control rod) connected. How many were inside? Only 6?
oddly enough yes only 6, think 2 v's inverted and touching at the point rather like ><, three on each side (I know kinda small for me, but I was using a limited footprint and had more verticle space in the cave)
Okay, so the 6 isn't a bug then, good. I'll just make some tweaks to the reactor's main heat-loss equation.
Yeah see i do abuse the hell out of NEI, but usually just to get me started, lol. Quick tour of last nights "work".
