I am working on a mod that adds realistic nuclear reactors - for now, only fission - to Minecraft. It is primarily intended to serve as an interface between RotaryCraft (my other tech mod) and IndustrialCraft, and as such is reliant on the former (it will crash otherwise) and likely useless without the latter.
Why do I say it is realistic? Here are some reasons:
The physics is simulated in such a way as to reflect reality, including real values for energy creation per reaction
The reactors (a large multiblock) have to be built in a way that reflects real reactors, with strategic placement of fuel rods, control rods, and other reactor core components
Realistic reactor behavior in the event of poor design, including possible meltdowns, hydrogen explosions, and radiation leakage
Realistic (though obviously simplified) control systems to manipulate control rods, feed fuel, and the like
The fuel is created realistically - including enrichment - and used realistically; users must manage things like spent fuel
Now, the mod is still extremely young, having only been conceived a week ago, and as such many of the above features await implementation and/or completion.
However, I have written the core of the fission simulator, and here is a screenshot of a cross-section of one stable reactor design:
The blue squares are the neutron packets; each are moving in one of the four horizontal cardinal directions. When they hit a block, they react accordingly:
Control rods (dark gray), if deployed, have a chance to absorb a neutron and heat up
Fuel rods (light gray), if they have fuel, can absorb a neutron, undergo a fission reaction, and release three more neutrons in random directions; they also occasionally spontaneously release one neutron
Water cells (blue center) can absorb a neutron and transfer its energy out the reactor towards a turbine; heavy water (pictured) is a more effective filler than plain water
Steel has a high chance to absorb a neutron
Concrete has a moderately high chance to absorb a neutron
Other blocks can absorb neutrons, with the chance dependent on material density
The reactor containment wall is critical; escaped neutrons can hurt entities they hit, possibly giving them minor radiation poisoning.
Woah. This is a mod I've been waiting awhile for. IC2 Reactors are nice and all, but they're not as "hard" to make as a "real" reactor would be. This looks more like I would've imagined them.. I think this would be a wonderful mod!
When I think about "realistic" reactor in minecraft, I imagine "real" water (or other liquid) pumped in and out with pumps and cooling rods insterted with sticky pistons. In other word, something that is a part of minecraft world, and not a minigame with it's own rules.
When I think about "realistic" reactor in minecraft, I imagine "real" water (or other liquid) pumped in and out with pumps and cooling rods insterted with sticky pistons. In other word, something that is a part of minecraft world, and not a minigame with it's own rules.
This is modding. To expect it to rely on the vanilla blocks is unreasonable. By your very same argument, every other tech mod out there is also deeply flawed.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I am the developer of many mods, most famously RotaryCraft and ChromatiCraft.
Feel free to support me and my mods via PayPal or Patreon
That would actually mean that you can integrate Railcraft boiler support into RotaryCraft via reactor components without the use of engines(the steam engines to convert the steam to MJ). Neat.
That would be difficult. Seeing as I am striving for realism, I cannot tell how much energy is in RailCraft steam (to use the technical terms, I need to know the enthalpy, or at least a temperature and a pressure), and thus realistic scaling - since obviously nuclear reactor steam would contain far more energy - is difficult to impossible.
The current concept looks nice. Do you have plans on adding different kinds of reactors? F.e. Breeder, LMFBR, MSR, BWR(light and heavey), PWR(light and heavey), GCR(Gas cooled reactors) and maybe even a SCR(Subcritical design -> ADS)
Or different kinds of fuel? F.e. Uran 235, 238, Thorium, Plutonium (and if implemented waste from those in an ADS such as neptunium-237, americium-241 and americium-243)
The current reactor design is most similar to the water-moderated reactors, with the primary exception being that I am not modeling actual neutron moderation (too much coding, calculation, and complexity for too little benefit).
I think many of these would go rather well above the heads of most Minecraft players, and would also be kind of difficult to implement and integrate into the gameplay. ReactorCraft is not intended to be a large standalone mod; it is an RC addon.
That said, I have toyed with adding MOX support to the reactors.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I am the developer of many mods, most famously RotaryCraft and ChromatiCraft.
Feel free to support me and my mods via PayPal or Patreon
This is modding. To expect it to rely on the vanilla blocks is unreasonable. By your very same argument, every other tech mod out there is also deeply flawed.
It's not about "flaws", it's about "emergent gameplay". If you rely more on common mechanics, then there are more ways for vanilla and other mods to interact with yours.
That would actually mean that you can integrate Railcraft boiler support into RotaryCraft via reactor components without the use of engines(the steam engines to convert the steam to MJ). Neat.
The current concept looks nice. Do you have plans on adding different kinds of reactors? F.e. Breeder, LMFBR, MSR, BWR(light and heavey), PWR(light and heavey), GCR(Gas cooled reactors) and maybe even a SCR(Subcritical design -> ADS)
Or different kinds of fuel? F.e. Uran 235, 238, Thorium, Plutonium (and if implemented waste from those in an ADS such as neptunium-237, americium-241 and americium-243)
I dont even know what half of those names mean, does anyone have a nuclear reactor dictionary or something
I dont even know what half of those names mean, does anyone have a nuclear reactor dictionary or something
Wikipedia is your friend. just look up nuclear reactor and click around.
breeder- generates more fissile material than what is put in.
unsure about the next two.
BWR/PWR: boiling/pressurized water reactors. in one the primary coolant loop boils as it passes through the core. in the other, it stays liquid under a couple hundred atmospheres.
gas-cooled use helium generally as coolant. one version, the PBR, or pebble-bed reactor uses ~softball sized fuel pellets and is supposedly melt-down proof.
unsure about SCR.
next list is all the fuels.
note that U238 is fissionable, meaning it can split, but it is NOT fissile (easy to split), or suitable fuel in most cases-usually it eats neutrons, occasionally turning into plutonium, which IS fissile. one goal is getting a reactor to run off natural uranium, which has very low U235 content.
the last three are a result of the fission process and those products absorbing neutrons.
It's not about "flaws", it's about "emergent gameplay". If you rely more on common mechanics, then there are more ways for vanilla and other mods to interact with yours.
It is interesting that you mention emergence when that is exactly how these reactors simulate a reaction.
But anyways, the main issue is again one of realism. Nothing in minecraft even comes close to being realistically able to manage or build a nuclear reactor (though obsidian will make good shielding material).
While true i think you might get away with the same ratios Railcraft uses for its conversion to MJ with using some kind of steam turbine.
So essentially you look how much steam Railcraft uses to produce x amount of MJ/t and how it is roughly converted to RotaryCraft energy and then make the same without the intermediate step of converting to MJ. I know this might not be as realistic as your actual reactor design but why not try and incorporate other mods in a simpler way.
I really do not want to rely on other mods' conversion rates (in this case Railcraft->BC), nor do I want to just "fake it".
Wikipedia is your friend. just look up nuclear reactor and click around.
breeder- generates more fissile material than what is put in.
unsure about the next two.
BWR/PWR: boiling/pressurized water reactors. in one the primary coolant loop boils as it passes through the core. in the other, it stays liquid under a couple hundred atmospheres.
gas-cooled use helium generally as coolant. one version, the PBR, or pebble-bed reactor uses ~softball sized fuel pellets and is supposedly melt-down proof.
unsure about SCR.
next list is all the fuels.
note that U238 is fissionable, meaning it can split, but it is NOT fissile (easy to split), or suitable fuel in most cases-usually it eats neutrons, occasionally turning into plutonium, which IS fissile. one goal is getting a reactor to run off natural uranium, which has very low U235 content.
the last three are a result of the fission process and those products absorbing neutrons.
My reactors run off of enriched (reactor-grade, ~3-6% U235) uranium. They gradually consume the U235, leaving behind depleted uranium (U238) and sometimes waste (real U235 fission fragments). And speaking of waste:
Quite likely that this is above average for most users. If you implement radioactive waste somehow it would be a really nice touch to have a SCR to use that waste. Just tossing ideas at your direction
Well, I did. It even decays using the real half-lives (in Minecraft time, of course).
Wow. That's going to be nasty especially with the long living ones.
It is. Xenon-135 decays at about one item every 30 seconds, Iodine-131 decays at about one item every 5 minutes, and I have yet to experience a decay of Strontium-90 or Tin-126, though statistics tells me that on average it should take 11 hours and 98.8 hours respectively. I think I am going to need to make the waste stackable or this is going to be unmanageable...
I have a question - control rods are made from materials obtainable neither through vanilla Minecraft nor anything added in FTB, and as such would necessitate one or two new ores (either Hafnium or Cadmium and Indium).
I have always been hesitant to add ores as I fear the "go to new chunks or get no ore" problem will mean many people will simply refuse to use the mod. Are my fears justified?
Come to think of it, I also need to add a source of Fluorine for uranium enrichment. Another new ore (Fluorite)?
I have always been hesitant to add ores as I fear the "go to new chunks or get no ore" problem will mean many people will simply refuse to use the mod. Are my fears justified?
ive seen other mods have it so when the mod is installed it will place the ore in chunks that dont have any of the new ore, fixing the problem.
What you have there is steam causing loads of block updates, lagging MC's (terrible) render engine, causing models to die and I/O boxes going mad. Place a condenser or steam scrubber in the path of the steam : The former if you want your water back or the latter if you don't care about your water. ALWAYS use the former in the case of Ammonia.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1969694-152forgesmp-reikas-mods/
I am working on a mod that adds realistic nuclear reactors - for now, only fission - to Minecraft. It is primarily intended to serve as an interface between RotaryCraft (my other tech mod) and IndustrialCraft, and as such is reliant on the former (it will crash otherwise) and likely useless without the latter.
Why do I say it is realistic? Here are some reasons:
However, I have written the core of the fission simulator, and here is a screenshot of a cross-section of one stable reactor design:
The blue squares are the neutron packets; each are moving in one of the four horizontal cardinal directions. When they hit a block, they react accordingly:
That is the plan.
This is modding. To expect it to rely on the vanilla blocks is unreasonable. By your very same argument, every other tech mod out there is also deeply flawed.
That would be difficult. Seeing as I am striving for realism, I cannot tell how much energy is in RailCraft steam (to use the technical terms, I need to know the enthalpy, or at least a temperature and a pressure), and thus realistic scaling - since obviously nuclear reactor steam would contain far more energy - is difficult to impossible.
The current reactor design is most similar to the water-moderated reactors, with the primary exception being that I am not modeling actual neutron moderation (too much coding, calculation, and complexity for too little benefit).
I think many of these would go rather well above the heads of most Minecraft players, and would also be kind of difficult to implement and integrate into the gameplay. ReactorCraft is not intended to be a large standalone mod; it is an RC addon.
That said, I have toyed with adding MOX support to the reactors.
It's not about "flaws", it's about "emergent gameplay". If you rely more on common mechanics, then there are more ways for vanilla and other mods to interact with yours.
I dont even know what half of those names mean, does anyone have a nuclear reactor dictionary or something
i play MC with 383-384 mods. i use Mats Mega Techpack on the technic launcher, link: http://www.technicpack.net/modpack/mats-techpack-1710.450813
Wikipedia is your friend. just look up nuclear reactor and click around.
breeder- generates more fissile material than what is put in.
unsure about the next two.
BWR/PWR: boiling/pressurized water reactors. in one the primary coolant loop boils as it passes through the core. in the other, it stays liquid under a couple hundred atmospheres.
gas-cooled use helium generally as coolant. one version, the PBR, or pebble-bed reactor uses ~softball sized fuel pellets and is supposedly melt-down proof.
unsure about SCR.
next list is all the fuels.
note that U238 is fissionable, meaning it can split, but it is NOT fissile (easy to split), or suitable fuel in most cases-usually it eats neutrons, occasionally turning into plutonium, which IS fissile. one goal is getting a reactor to run off natural uranium, which has very low U235 content.
the last three are a result of the fission process and those products absorbing neutrons.
It is interesting that you mention emergence when that is exactly how these reactors simulate a reaction.
But anyways, the main issue is again one of realism. Nothing in minecraft even comes close to being realistically able to manage or build a nuclear reactor (though obsidian will make good shielding material).
I really do not want to rely on other mods' conversion rates (in this case Railcraft->BC), nor do I want to just "fake it".
And hence why I am hesitant to make this too technical.
My reactors run off of enriched (reactor-grade, ~3-6% U235) uranium. They gradually consume the U235, leaving behind depleted uranium (U238) and sometimes waste (real U235 fission fragments). And speaking of waste:
Well, I did. It even decays using the real half-lives (in Minecraft time, of course).
I can see two likely responses from trying:
One: [no response]
Two: "I never designed this to be realistic, so there is no specific value."
It is. Xenon-135 decays at about one item every 30 seconds, Iodine-131 decays at about one item every 5 minutes, and I have yet to experience a decay of Strontium-90 or Tin-126, though statistics tells me that on average it should take 11 hours and 98.8 hours respectively. I think I am going to need to make the waste stackable or this is going to be unmanageable...
I have always been hesitant to add ores as I fear the "go to new chunks or get no ore" problem will mean many people will simply refuse to use the mod. Are my fears justified?
Come to think of it, I also need to add a source of Fluorine for uranium enrichment. Another new ore (Fluorite)?
ive seen other mods have it so when the mod is installed it will place the ore in chunks that dont have any of the new ore, fixing the problem.
i play MC with 383-384 mods. i use Mats Mega Techpack on the technic launcher, link: http://www.technicpack.net/modpack/mats-techpack-1710.450813
Retro-gen, yes, but how does one do that?
I am moving all operations to a new thread devoted to all my mods, rather than maintaining half a dozen separate threads.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1969694-152forgesmp-reikas-mods/
Please move all discussions there, and they will continue otherwise uninterrupted.
What you have there is steam causing loads of block updates, lagging MC's (terrible) render engine, causing models to die and I/O boxes going mad. Place a condenser or steam scrubber in the path of the steam : The former if you want your water back or the latter if you don't care about your water. ALWAYS use the former in the case of Ammonia.