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[WIP] Nert's Dev Thread - Current: such nuke, wow


Nertea

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Oh, there's even authentic videos of real NTR exhaust. Problem is: that's not going to help you in the least, because it's a stream of hot, inert hydrogen. It's invisible safe for the rippling heat effect. The only reason you can see a plume in

at all is because the test stand has a spark plug for safety reasons. It ignites the hydrogen as it is mixing with atmospheric oxygen in order to burn it off, preventing large clouds of potentially dangerous hydrogen/oxygen gas to form.

I also think that's just a testbed reactor and not actually a flight hardware engine with a proper nozzle, so the plume is poorly shaped.

As for straightforward hydrolox combustion, it's a pure blue (with orange flame artifacts from ambient sodium, a few ppb is enough) that gets progressively more translucent-whitish as temperature rises. See: space shuttle main engine at liftoff.

Edited by Streetwind
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There's only so many ways to make NTRs.

Nertea,

I don't have any good pictures (only pictures that exist are what, 60's era?) but I know in some pics it looks orange translucent.

This is normal H2 combustion:

http://preciousmetalswest.com/images/IMG_7986.JPG

I imagine this but without the blue and with a bit more red in it.

In a nuclear engine there isn't Hydrogen combustion (well, except in bimodal engines). Plus, that image is Hydrogen combustion in an atmosphere that changes it's color. If you look at the videos of Saturn V staging, the plume in space is much less visible, and flames only appear when the interstage ring intercept the plume itself. However, I think a middle ground between realistic and aestetically pleasing should be the right option.

EDIT: aaand ninja'd by someone that could explain it way better than me

Also have a color video of the NERVA test:

You can see the plume in it, and on earth it appears actually reddish, but considered that those engines would be used more in space the blue would be more suitable and unique. Just my two cents anyway :)

Edited by Sage
japanese shadows warriors
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Considering the exhaust is composed of superheated non-oxidized hydrogen, if anything I imagine it would resemble the hydrogen emission spectrum, which is primarily red with tinges of indigo and cyan. See this spectral tube with the component wavelengths at right. Please don't make it blue, glowing hydrogen is the opposite of blue.

Switching to blue in LANTR mode would be neat though.

Also, excited for new heat mechanic, and a liquid core NTR!

Edit: This page I found on the Orbiter forums is trying to answer the same question. Some good links in there.

Super edit: This is interesting, here are some things google turned up on hydrogen plasma, seems reddish (oc we all know pink is not a real color) is indeed a common color. Found some more info. Not sure if the H2 enters the plasma phase, but if it does, then it's pink/magenta/red with maybe a bit of blue. Looking at these, I actually think the hotrockets guys got pretty close.

Picture of Hydrogen plasma beam

Another that is more red

One More

Hyper edit: NTREES is a test chamber designed to simulate the conditions of a firing NTR without the fission component, it is used to test various propellant options.

Here is what NTREES looks like running on Hydrogen:

2-nasaresearch.jpg

Edited by Starbuckminsterfullerton
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Nert, your nuclear engines look like great concepts. I was thinking of making a 2.5m triton tri-modal engine for my nuclear engines mod but if you are doing that then there is no need for me to because your stuff is simply fabulous. Will the engine double as a reactor?

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I expected it would be invisible or faint, I hoped I was wrong (haha). So all those animations from the Copernicus MTVs with the whitish blue exhausts are dead wrong then?

Nuclear engine exhaust should be totally transparent in real life, since excited H2 emits mostly in the UV spectrum and up. Considering that's a bit boring, you should go for a deep bluish, yet very faint plume. Possibly have the emissive of the engine be withe inside the nozzle itself. (That's actually how normal LH2/LOX engine look, since water is pretty up in the energy spectrum). Eagerly waiting for your heat mechanics :) (and those engine are going to fit so well with Ven's revamp, too.)

Yeah, all my engines from hereon in will be targeted to match Ven's stuff. Not a huge fan of all of his revamps, but the engines take top place for sure.

There's only so many ways to make NTRs.

Nertea,

I don't have any good pictures (only pictures that exist are what, 60's era?) but I know in some pics it looks orange translucent.

This is normal H2 combustion:

http://preciousmetalswest.com/images/IMG_7986.JPG

I imagine this but without the blue and with a bit more red in it.

Okay, correct me if I'm wrong but this is how this quote translates:

"Sick of modeling things with people in them, or designed for operation near people.": IVAs are p***ing me off.

"Got to make me some fire-spewing fire machines, with none of those goddamn internal meshes or "safeties".": I wanna make some bada** rocket engines!

ANd a quick question. Are you going to bundle these with propulsion? Because with that installed I never use nukes. The MPDTs have phased out nuclear propulsion on anything long range.

Translations are pretty accurate. I won't bundle these with NFPropulsion, it will be a separate pack. However it should be balanced against the electric engines to some extent, particularly if you use the CTT (effective use of MPDTs will need reactors, which are in the same region as the nuclear engine nodes).

Gotta think about LH2/LOX tankage now. Have ideas. Might finally bundle FS. Urgh.

Nert, your nuclear engines look like great concepts. I was thinking of making a 2.5m triton tri-modal engine for my nuclear engines mod but if you are doing that then there is no need for me to because your stuff is simply fabulous. Will the engine double as a reactor?

Yes, the ones with the liney bit at the top are electricity producing. Deeply inspired by the Triton, hence the names Poseidon and Neptune ;).

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Why would you need FS? Texture switching? Where's the need?

NFP already has the LH2 tanks (make the new parts also go in the NFPropulsion directory if you need to or make it 2 folders, a stripped down propulsion with the LH2 tanks and NearFutureNuclear with engines) and stock already has 9/11 LF/OX tanks. MAYBE you could use a few pure OX tanks for people who really want to tweak their fuel mixtures, but I don't see a need here aside from just redoing parts that already exist aside from doing them at Nertea level quality.

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  • 5 weeks later...

Hey, Nertea! I'd like to make a request, if you have the time, for a service-landing module for your 3.75 meter command pod. I haven't found one, and uh... stock parts are kind of big for using it as a lander, or for any normal use you could find for a large pod. It's a cool design, but I'm having to let it languish for lack of a suitable drive section to let it perform landings. Even a makeshift-job like scaling up the ultra-low profile 2.5 meter engine that comes with built in fuel tanks would be nice...

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Hey, Nertea! I'd like to make a request, if you have the time, for a service-landing module for your 3.75 meter command pod. I haven't found one, and uh... stock parts are kind of big for using it as a lander, or for any normal use you could find for a large pod. It's a cool design, but I'm having to let it languish for lack of a suitable drive section to let it perform landings. Even a makeshift-job like scaling up the ultra-low profile 2.5 meter engine that comes with built in fuel tanks would be nice...

Two suggestions. 1) go look at the Taurus HCV, which is a 3.75m standard conical command pod but also includes a flat fuel tank, large crew can, large science bay w/cargo bay storage for radial stuffs, ultra-flat fuel tank, thin stack separator, and quadrapoodle engine. Its everything you need to make a 3.75m orbiter and can fit seemlessly with Nertea's command pod too. 2) build it with a 2.5m service stage. I built the thing out as a CTV/module tug powered by VASIMR engines (I flip-flopped between reactor or solar across versions) and I find it looks really cool, but maybe its just me.

EDIT: Oh and Nertea, you mentioned gas core. Does that insinuate there is potential for a nuclear lightbulb? I just converted Porkjet's Atomic Age over to burning LH2, are you really going to make me choose my nuke pack? Thats gonna suck and be awesome at the same time.

Edited by Captain Sierra
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Considering the exhaust is composed of superheated non-oxidized hydrogen, if anything I imagine it would resemble the hydrogen emission spectrum, which is primarily red with tinges of indigo and cyan. See this spectral tube with the component wavelengths at right. Please don't make it blue, glowing hydrogen is the opposite of blue.

Switching to blue in LANTR mode would be neat though.

Also, excited for new heat mechanic, and a liquid core NTR!

Edit: This page I found on the Orbiter forums is trying to answer the same question. Some good links in there.

Super edit: This is interesting, here are some things google turned up on hydrogen plasma, seems reddish (oc we all know pink is not a real color) is indeed a common color. Found some more info. Not sure if the H2 enters the plasma phase, but if it does, then it's pink/magenta/red with maybe a bit of blue. Looking at these, I actually think the hotrockets guys got pretty close.

Picture of Hydrogen plasma beam

Another that is more red

One More

Hyper edit: NTREES is a test chamber designed to simulate the conditions of a firing NTR without the fission component, it is used to test various propellant options.

Here is what NTREES looks like running on Hydrogen:

http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/hires/2013/2-nasaresearch.jpg

I don't suppose we know what sort of cameras those pictures were taken with? If digital then the plasma most likely wasn't as bright as it appears in those pictures. Basically imagine the core as being the same color as the outer edges only a little brighter. (digital cameras get oversaturated by bright colors easily)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm putting up a test release for the next version of Near Future Electrical, for the purpose of feedback and bug tracking.

This is really a test release. Only install it if you want to help me track down various bugs, and are cool with possible ship breakage (due to reactors melting down at high timewarps).

Major Changes

  • KSP 0.90 update
  • New sub-plugin, SystemHeat
  • Simple heat management system, don't let the SystemHeat resource bar fill up or some systems will take damage
  • Only FissionReactors add SystemHeat right now
  • Remove heat with Radiators, and eventually Convectors, Storage
  • Radiators can be placed anywhere on the ship!
  • Capacitors: Removed old automation panel, replaced with ship capacitor summary window
  • Capacitors: Fixed dischargeability when storage empty
  • RTGs: New RTG decay is available as an optional patch
  • RTGs: RTGs decay to 0.05% of max power (can be overridden in cfg) over a certain half life

Known Bugs

  • Heat generation is unstable at high time warp!
  • Capacitor/Reactor UI panels need some rearranging
  • Debug fields may still be enabled on some components

I have read the bugs list and realize that the heat generation bug may melt down reactors randomly, and promise not to complain about that

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Thank you so much for finding the time to keep working on all of this, it is greatly appreciated!

Having said that, a few general observations made, not sure if any of this is news to you:

-As noted, Reactors dont play well with high timewarps, although it works up to 100000x without issue. This is only a problem while the vessel is focused - when it is not, reactors do not die even at truly ludicrous speeds, however they also cease consuming fuel.

-Heat management logspam. A lot of it, it even seemed to make the game lag a little with a 9 part vessel, but that is to be expected at this stage.

-Love radiators being attachable everywhere - they seem to have lost their glow though :3

-With the RTG decay patch, the NFE rtg does not deliver any power output, and the stock rtg appears unchanged.

If I notice anything else, I will add to this list :)

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-As noted, Reactors dont play well with high timewarps, although it works up to 100000x without issue. This is only a problem while the vessel is focused - when it is not, reactors do not die even at truly ludicrous speeds, however they also cease consuming fuel.

The appropriate amount of fuel should be subtracted when switching back to the ship, is this not happening?

-Heat management logspam. A lot of it, it even seemed to make the game lag a little with a 9 part vessel, but that is to be expected at this stage.

Looks like one rogue log call is causing all of that. I'll fix that.

-With the RTG decay patch, the NFE rtg does not deliver any power output, and the stock rtg appears unchanged.

The RTG may not have been properly set up to work when not staged. Are you seeing no generation even when the vessel is launched? I'll fix that regardless, but It would help track things down.

I forgot to mention some other changes that are mostly untested:

  • Refueling of reactors got many tweaks, more flexible now
  • Kerbal Engineers are needed to work on reactors
  • Level 4 engineers are needed to refuel reactors
  • Level 5 engineers can repair core damage up to 95% of optimal

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The appropriate amount of fuel should be subtracted when switching back to the ship, is this not happening?

...

The RTG may not have been properly set up to work when not staged. Are you seeing no generation even when the vessel is launched? I'll fix that regardless, but It would help track things down.

Positive on the fuel depletion issue, nothing is subtracted. Are there any dependencies for that to happen that are assumed to be installed, because I used a more or less clean install for it...

You got me on the rtg, that is quite smart actually (smarter than me for sure).

Oh, and one more thing I noticed is that the Start [open/closed] option in the VAB/SPH does not have any effect, neither before or at launch.

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Ok cool I'll look into that. Might be a similar problem to the RTG actually... Again, did you launch the reactor or just test it on the pad?

Couldn't get radiator start open/closed to work easily, should remove that option.

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There's only so many ways to make NTRs.

Nertea,

I don't have any good pictures (only pictures that exist are what, 60's era?) but I know in some pics it looks orange translucent.

This is normal H2 combustion:

http://preciousmetalswest.com/images/IMG_7986.JPG

I imagine this but without the blue and with a bit more red in it.

Burning hydrogen like that does not look similar to burning hydrogen in a rocket engine. Take a look at a Space Shuttle launch; the exhaust from the SSME's is almost invisible, but faintly blue. Besides that, it's actually superheated steam that comes out of the SSME's, superheated hydrogen might look different.

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Ok cool I'll look into that. Might be a similar problem to the RTG actually... Again, did you launch the reactor or just test it on the pad?

Fool me once... ;D

Hyperedited the reactors into orbit, that should count as launched. Also did some quicksaving/loading in between.

Also fuel was consumed while the vessel was focused, just not when it was, well, not.

Oh and the radiator option is not that big of a deal imho, more of a nice to have thing.

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I gave this a whirl yesterday, but haven't had internet access since, so now's finally time to report.

I actually couldn't get heat generation to break at high timewarp. When exactly is it supposed to happen? I took a MX-4 that was idling at 10%, with 120W heat output, and provided 125W worth of radiator power. Took this to max (stock) timewarp for half a minute straight and the SystemHeat readout didn't even twitch upwards - in fact, it continued to dissipate a small amount of previously accrued heat as expected, and then sat firmly at zero.

The new capacitor window works... almost as I had envisioned it. When actually using this first draft, it occurred to me that I was missing some easy-to-glance visual feedback as to the overall status of my various capacitors while scrolling through the list. The text-based charge indicator has the data, but is hard to see without stopping and looking directly and individually at it. I'm gonna think it over again for a bit if there's an obvious improvement that can be fit into the available space...

...and hoo boy is the UI broken if you try to deal with both capacitors and reactors at the same time :D But you probably knew that already!

Other than that, I am going to echo Tellion's sentiment of missing that beautiful radiator glow :P And, also, I was surprised to find that I really missed the action button to toggle all available radiators on the reactor. Didn't even think of that before I actually tried to do it! I know that it may be a little more tricky, now that radiators can be attached anywhere, but it would be really cool if you found a way and a spot to add a "toggle all radiators" button again.

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