How do I tell how many radiators I will need with various engines?

[mackadelik]

Hello,

I still pretty new to the game. I have mechjeb and just got the engineer mod. My question is how do I know when I have enough radiators that handle all of the heat generated by engines? say 8 atomic engines or 4 landsail engines? Is there an easy check for this or rule of thumb I should know? X amount of medium radiators for this many of this type of engine... Thanks!

Edited July 1, 2015 by mackadelik

[Laie]

I've only had limited experience since radiators are a thing, but it seems as if they are not needed for ordinary operations. Maybe if you stack nukes on a quadcoupler or your vessel design demands that you have insulating bits on top of your engine. I haven't been there yet.

[Gaarst]

I'm using a ~25t ship with a single LV-N as an interplanetary ship. A few days ago in 1.0.4 I did a 25 min full throttle insertion burn at Moho (3600 m/s) and it didn't overheat at all (60% max heat capability according to KER).

If you're using several LV-N then your radiator use will depend on the heat sinking capabilities of your ship. If you have parts with a large thermal mass, then they will absorb heat slowly but surely and your ship will have time to cool down after the burn. The heat is stored and won't make any problem.

On the other hand, if your ship does not absorb heat well, you might consider using radiators to help dissipate heat during the burn. I'd suggest 1 extendable medium per 2 LV-N (I have no, a single LV-N, and it works fine at Moho). What you can also do is launch some test vehicles with different amouts of radiators and see how they behave.

FYI, non-extendable radiators take heat from the part they're attached to, but extendable radiators take heat from the whole ship equally, you may want to consider this while building your ship.