Author Topic: Engine and Reactor Names  (Read 2035 times)

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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Engine and Reactor Names
« on: May 04, 2021, 05:51:56 AM »
I have a minor issue with the removal of the tokamak, its too cool to remove, could it come back to replace the generic 'magnetic confinement reactor' used for magnetic confinement drives ?
Afterall it is a magnetic confinement reactor itself, and even the previous stellarator is also a magnetic confinement reactor,. It might introduce some confusion to people familiar with previous tech levels though. In fact maybe some of the other generic reactor types could be renamed.

Improved Pressurized water reactor - Pressurized Heavy water Reactor
Improved Nuclear Thermal Engine - Liquid Core Nuclear thermal engine
Improved Pebble bed - Molten Salt Cooled Pebble Bed
Improved Nuclear Pulse Engine - Liquid Metal Core Nuclear Pulse Engine

This post linked below in the v1.14.0 changes thread sparked some responses in the change discussion thread (see above for example). I thought it was worth splitting this out into a separate thread for a more general discussion. I would like to see if we could reach a consensus on potential engine and reactor renaming.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg151032#msg151032
 

Offline Droll

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Re: Engine and Reactor Names
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2021, 08:42:05 AM »
I have a minor issue with the removal of the tokamak, its too cool to remove, could it come back to replace the generic 'magnetic confinement reactor' used for magnetic confinement drives ?
Afterall it is a magnetic confinement reactor itself, and even the previous stellarator is also a magnetic confinement reactor,. It might introduce some confusion to people familiar with previous tech levels though. In fact maybe some of the other generic reactor types could be renamed.

Improved Pressurized water reactor - Pressurized Heavy water Reactor
Improved Nuclear Thermal Engine - Liquid Core Nuclear thermal engine
Improved Pebble bed - Molten Salt Cooled Pebble Bed
Improved Nuclear Pulse Engine - Liquid Metal Core Nuclear Pulse Engine

This post linked below in the v1.14.0 changes thread sparked some responses in the change discussion thread (see above for example). I thought it was worth splitting this out into a separate thread for a more general discussion. I would like to see if we could reach a consensus on potential engine and reactor renaming.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12523.msg151032#msg151032

I think its a good idea to do the changes as it makes them more unique from each other. I did suggest that "Pressurized Heavy water Reactor" be changed to "Pressurized Deuterium Reactor" but otherwise I think they are better names than the originals.
 

Offline kilo

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Re: Engine and Reactor Names
« Reply #2 on: May 04, 2021, 09:17:12 AM »
The liquid metal or liquid salt makes sense in a power plant, but not in an engine. These are used to cool the reactor and transfer heat to a reactor component. In rocket engines you would simply not do that.

So here is what I suggest for nuclear thermal and improved nuclear thermal engines:
Nuclear thermal could be something like NERVA. A conventional nuclear reactor that becomes really hot and heats hydrogen. This leads to a high pressure, which is converted into impulse. The maximum temperature is limited by the melting point of the fuel rods though.
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA

Another approach to nuclear thermal propulsion which can reach higher temperature and efficiency is the nuclear salt water rocket. It uses soluble salts of fissile elements, like U-235 for example, in water and a neutron source to ignite it. The advantage of this method is that all the really hot stuff leaves the engine, which saves it from overheating. The disadvantage is that the reaction products leave the engine and irradiate the environment.
Link: https://freepressweb.blog/2021/01/12/the-nuclear-salt-water-rocket-possibly-the-craziest-rocket-engine-ever-imagine
 
 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Engine and Reactor Names
« Reply #3 on: May 04, 2021, 12:06:05 PM »
I'll contribute as my training is as a nuclear engineer and my work specialty is adjacent to nuclear fusion reactors, so I may know a thing or two that could be useful.

So currently, the TN power/engine techs below antimatter are (pulled from DB):
  • Pressurised Water Reactor + Nuclear Thermal Engine
  • Improved PWR + Improved NTE
  • Pebble Bed Reactor + Nuclear Pulse Engine
  • Improved PBR + Improved NPE
  • Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor + Ion Drive
  • Stellarator Fusion Reactor + Magneto-Plasma Drive
  • Tokamak Fusion Reactor + Internal Confinement Fusion Drive
  • Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor + Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive
  • Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor + Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive
Conventional and AM+ tiers are probably fine.

The current proposed change is to remove Tokamak + IntCF, shift everything above that down one tier, and add a new high-end tech. In this case we only need 8 techs from fission through fusion instead of 9.

Having said this I would highlight a few problems with the current tech track:
  • The "Improved" techs are just boring and not flavorful.
  • Pebble Bed Reactors are a form of gas-cooled reactor, albeit not a fast reactor.
  • There is not really a strong connection between the gas-cooled fast reactor and the ion drive, at least not compared to any other reactor type.
  • Both stellarators and tokamaks are MCF devices, and having both of these as precursors to a generic MCF reactor is weird.
  • "Internal confinement fusion" is too similar to "inertial confinement" and doesn't really have a clear definition.

Probably the best approach is to work out what engine techs we want. Here I think it makes sense to scrap the IntCF drive, for the reasons already given by Steve and others but also because it's frankly a bit suspect - we frankly don't have any more viable fusion methods beyond MCF and ICF (inertial) for practical purposes (you can do e.g. beam fusion but that's not going to be a viable power source). However there are some interesting MCF devices which could be used.

For the fission-era techs I would suggest including Nuclear Radioisotope Engine (NRE) as a pre-NTE tech (moving NTE up to tier 2) as a companion to RTGs. These are such a simple kind of reactor that I think it makes sense to have the introductory TN reactors and engines be of this sort. The other tech I would suggest is a Nuclear Gas-Core Engine (NGE) which is driven by exhaust from a gaseous fission reactor and could be an intermediate step to a plasma-driven TN ion drive.

Now we need to match this to reactor techs. Most of these are not too tricky, for example RTGs match to NREs, the existing PWR and PBR match to NTE and NPE with no problems (it may not necessarily be a close comparison in terms of the physics, but it is by now canonical so let's leave this as it is). The ICF reactor and drive match. I would connect Tokamaks to the MCF drive and stellarators to the MP drives - this is a topic of much debate, but thus far the fusion community is largely pursuing tokamaks as the MCF power reactor of choice over stellarators, however the stellarator was developed earlier and has better plasma stability (to grossly oversimplify) so it makes sense as a "pre-fusion" plasma tech step.

This leaves the two middle techs. For the ion drive, I would suggest to connect this to the Magnetic Mirror Fusion Reactor both as another plasma/fusion type of reactor which is more specific and flavorful, and because the traditional mirror reactor design has a natural "loss cone" which could at least be readily visualized as the exit nozzle of an ion thruster (I'm not sure that's exactly how it works, but it looks cool in my imagination). For the gas-core drive, I would suggest a Gaseous Fission Reactor in place of the gas-cooled fast reactor. On one hand this is because that is the exact reactor type to use for a gas-core rocket, on the other hand a fast reactor is I think a questionable concept for space propulsion as the use of fast reactors has more to do with waste reduction/recycling and fuel efficiency than any raw performance characteristics.

So to summarize the tech changes I would make:
  • Radioisotope Thermal Generator + Nuclear Radioisotope Engine
  • Pressurised Water Reactor + Nuclear Thermal Engine
  • Pebble Bed Reactor + Nuclear Pulse Engine
  • Gaseous Fission Reactor + Nuclear Gas-Core Engine
  • Magnetic Mirror Fusion Reactor + Ion Drive
  • Stellarator Fusion Reactor + Magneto-Plasma Drive
  • Tokamak Fusion Reactor + Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive
  • Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor + Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive
This goes along with the proposed shifting of the higher-tier techs down one slot and the addition of the new top-end tech.

Side Note: On the subject of inertial confinement fusion (ICF), nearly all approaches thus far have been laser-driven (whether direct or indirect), thus we could rename the ICF techs as "Laser Fusion Reactor" and "Laser Fusion Drive" (probably shortening the MCF Drive to "Magnetic Fusion Drive"). I would recommend this, except for the fact that TN laser technology is a separate tech line and I think it could be confusing to have a laser drive type that is not related to the laser weapon type.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: Engine and Reactor Names
« Reply #4 on: May 06, 2021, 04:56:23 AM »
Thanks for the detailed list and explanation. I'm inclined to go with the list provided by nuclearslurpee unless there are any general strong objections.
 
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Offline xenoscepter

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Re: Engine and Reactor Names
« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2021, 06:36:40 AM »
 - I don't even know what half of these things are, much less how they work, so you'll hear no objections from me. :) The better ones make the ship go fasta, and give the shootas more dakka, and das enough for me. ;D
 

Offline skoormit

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Re: Engine and Reactor Names
« Reply #6 on: May 06, 2021, 09:18:02 AM »
Thanks for the detailed list and explanation. I'm inclined to go with the list provided by nuclearslurpee unless there are any general strong objections.

Could we...could we have one called "Nuclear Slurpee Fusion Reactor"?
Or maybe some scientifical synonym for slurpee.
 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Engine and Reactor Names
« Reply #7 on: May 06, 2021, 10:40:53 AM »
Thanks for the detailed list and explanation. I'm inclined to go with the list provided by nuclearslurpee unless there are any general strong objections.

Could we...could we have one called "Nuclear Slurpee Fusion Reactor"?
Or maybe some scientifical synonym for slurpee.

Make it a secret technology that gives 69 EP per HS please   :P
 
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Offline Elouda

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Re: Engine and Reactor Names
« Reply #8 on: May 06, 2021, 01:09:37 PM »
I think nuclearslurpee's list is great, except for the addition of the radioisotope tier, as these produce such pitiful power amounts that they just really make no sense for large vessels. Instead, I would omit that, and insert one of the following;

Between Pebble Bed and Gaseous Fission -> Molten Salt Reactor + Open-Cycle Nuclear Engine OR Nuclear Liquid-Core (or Molten-Core) Engine

OR

Between Gaseous Fission Reactor and Magnetic Mirror Fusion Reactor -> Dusty Plasma Reactor + Fission Fragment Engine

I would also consider if 'Mirror-Cell Fusion Reactor' might not be a better option than 'Magnetic Mirror Fusion Reactor'
 
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Offline Cobaia

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Re: Engine and Reactor Names
« Reply #9 on: May 06, 2021, 02:03:59 PM »
nuclearslurpee is now my main PP Scientist. Give a Reactor is name please!
 
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Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Engine and Reactor Names
« Reply #10 on: May 06, 2021, 03:14:41 PM »
I think nuclearslurpee's list is great, except for the addition of the radioisotope tier, as these produce such pitiful power amounts that they just really make no sense for large vessels. Instead, I would omit that, and insert one of the following;

They don't have to be pitiful, especially with TNE science, which is why I suggested RTGs as they're a very simple but very low-power design which makes sense as an entry level to a whole new kind of science.

Even thinking conventionally, however, it is not too unthinkable to have an array of smaller RTGs as a single "reactor": for example, the MMRTG used by Curiosity puts out 120 We from a cylindrical volume of 0.212 m^3 (which a large overestimate due to the fins which are not needed for an Aurora-style reactor) which comes out to a power density of 8 kW/ton (where 1 ton = 14.085 m^3, the volume of one ton of liquid hydrogen) or 400 kW per HS. By contrast, the Westinghouse AP1000 PWR puts out 1117 MWe with a containment vessel volume of 102,595 m^3 (which neglects the actual power generation loop!) for a power density of 153 kW/ton. This is about 20x the power density of the RTG, but here we are neglecting (1) the power generation components of the PWR and (2) the efficiency gains we can make for a RTG by, e.g., using a coolant loop instead of thermocouples and removing the massive fins.

Basically I don't see any reason why RTGs cannot be scaled up in Aurora to produce comparable power to a PWR or higher-tech reactor. The major reason we don't do this in real life is the mass of nuclear fuel required, which can be abstracted away by Aurora as sorium is not explicitly a fissionable material (it may be a coolant, exhaust gas, etc.).

Quote
Between Pebble Bed and Gaseous Fission -> Molten Salt Reactor + Open-Cycle Nuclear Engine OR Nuclear Liquid-Core (or Molten-Core) Engine

OR

Between Gaseous Fission Reactor and Magnetic Mirror Fusion Reactor -> Dusty Plasma Reactor + Fission Fragment Engine

I'm not opposed to MSRs, they're generally not preferred for propulsion applications for some very good reasons but we have TNE science so we can handwave whatever we want. That said what I've tried to do with the engine techs I've listed is model the more common (proposed) nuclear propulsion technologies, which is in keeping with the spirit of the existing techs (up to AM of course). I'm not sure MSRs really add much to that and otherwise are a bit niche (if very cool) reactor type.

Dusty plasma reactor I can't get behind though. For power production dusty plasmas are abysmal and as this is a power reactor tech which leads into a propulsion drive tech so this is not a negligible consideration. Frankly I do not buy what Clark and Sheldon are selling. For propulsion it could probably work fine, I just can't think of any reliable power reactor design that would make sense to drive it.

Quote
I would also consider if 'Mirror-Cell Fusion Reactor' might not be a better option than 'Magnetic Mirror Fusion Reactor'

I've not ever heard this term used. "Magnetic mirror" is to the best of my knowledge a fairly standard term.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2021, 03:18:56 PM by nuclearslurpee »