[1.0.5] Heat Management (No longer supported)

[cipherpunks]

I guess as always with things like that - AtomicRockets, and before that - some NASA proposal or something :-)

Get it here - a couple of useful parts they have, too, but not all of them.

[cipherpunks]

What is the intended purpose of heat sinks?

I've tried them with radiators next to hot part, but had overheat problems, and found AHMS vastly superior. Considering pruning them, unless someone explains what they are.

[Randazzo]

What is the intended purpose of heat sinks?

I've tried them with radiators next to hot part, but had overheat problems, and found AHMS vastly superior. Considering pruning them, unless someone explains what they are.

Heatsinks were balanced against stock parts (IE, only the LV-N). Using them for mod parts will likely end badly. I did put this in the Dev thread, I should probably add it to this one, eh?

They also do not get rid of heat themselves, they only soak it.

[Schpulke]

Hm and how to cool them off?

[Randazzo]

Hm and how to cool them off?

Radiators. Either the ones in the mod or stock will do.

Heat Control radiators may still work as well, I've not played with them under 1.0.4

[Yski]

Could you add a small sections to the OP that tells what the mod actually does? You can sort of piece it together seeing as you explain how the heatsinks and AHMS units work, but I know I love to be explicitly told that this mod includes heatsinks and radiators, for example. Something like a small checklist of all the goodies would be nice, so it's immediately obvious if the mod has what you're looking for

[Randazzo]

Could you add a small sections to the OP that tells what the mod actually does? You can sort of piece it together seeing as you explain how the heatsinks and AHMS units work, but I know I love to be explicitly told that this mod includes heatsinks and radiators, for example. Something like a small checklist of all the goodies would be nice, so it's immediately obvious if the mod has what you're looking for

I've added a better part album and descriptions and a pictorial example to the Q&A section.

Edited August 12, 2015 by Randazzo

[Yski]

I've added a better part album and descriptions and a pictorial example to the Q&A section.

Great, thanks. As a side note, I'm loving the fact you can tweakscale these things. Instead of the 7 minute burns with enough stock radiators to half my fps I get an hour out of this beauty with yours

(Orange tank for scale)

http://imgur.com/vwPx2nJ/

Edited August 12, 2015 by Yski

[Hagen von Tronje]

Hi, great mod, great parts.

Perhaps contrary to intended purpose, I am using the AHMS on aircraft, in conjunction with Firespitter electric propellers. The reason is that the props generate significant heat at very high altitudes even though they still function, and while the props have a high heat threshold, obviously I'd rather isolate that from the fuselage and payload.

However, I've found a really strange behavior.

I've been testing out the parts using AHMS with a thermal washer behind to keep the heat isolated to the engine area. This works wonderfully and so long as you bring enough AHMS, you can easily keep the fuselage at ambient temperature and the engine well in hand.

I have also observed what appears to be the method they operate by - heat is transferred to the skin, where it's dumped, then repeating the cycle every second or so. So far, so good.

Here's where it gets weird. If I fly to very high altitude with barely enough AHMS, it gets hot (about 750K) but maintains this just fine. But no matter how much AHMS I bring, if I dive sharply while engines are running (i.e. heat is being generated), the skin temperature on the engine and AHMS becomes...not quite frozen, but highly resistant to change. This completely halts the AHMS and they will no longer actively shed heat. Ever. Dropping to near sea level brings internal temps well below 600 (though about double what they were at similar altitude prior to this incident) yet the skin temps remain nearly unchanged; whereas before the internal temp was much higher than skin temp, now internal will be much lower, and skin temp stays almost unchanged. Mind you, I'm not talking about overheating the AHMS - it does this at 700K or below sometimes, lower than I previously saw it operating normally.

No NH3 is ever consumed at any temp after doing this. No amount of cooling corrects it. So far as I can tell, the part is bricked.

It can seemingly be avoided by completely killing all engines prior to diving, but I really am at a loss for what's really going on. Is this a known glitch with stock, where high altitude dives can freeze skin temps, inadvertently breaking the AHMS parts? Or is this all normal and I just don't get it?

[Randazzo]

Hi, great mod, great parts.

Perhaps contrary to intended purpose, I am using the AHMS on aircraft, in conjunction with Firespitter electric propellers. The reason is that the props generate significant heat at very high altitudes even though they still function, and while the props have a high heat threshold, obviously I'd rather isolate that from the fuselage and payload.

However, I've found a really strange behavior.

I've been testing out the parts using AHMS with a thermal washer behind to keep the heat isolated to the engine area. This works wonderfully and so long as you bring enough AHMS, you can easily keep the fuselage at ambient temperature and the engine well in hand.

I have also observed what appears to be the method they operate by - heat is transferred to the skin, where it's dumped, then repeating the cycle every second or so. So far, so good.

Here's where it gets weird. If I fly to very high altitude with barely enough AHMS, it gets hot (about 750K) but maintains this just fine. But no matter how much AHMS I bring, if I dive sharply while engines are running (i.e. heat is being generated), the skin temperature on the engine and AHMS becomes...not quite frozen, but highly resistant to change. This completely halts the AHMS and they will no longer actively shed heat. Ever. Dropping to near sea level brings internal temps well below 600 (though about double what they were at similar altitude prior to this incident) yet the skin temps remain nearly unchanged; whereas before the internal temp was much higher than skin temp, now internal will be much lower, and skin temp stays almost unchanged. Mind you, I'm not talking about overheating the AHMS - it does this at 700K or below sometimes, lower than I previously saw it operating normally.

No NH3 is ever consumed at any temp after doing this. No amount of cooling corrects it. So far as I can tell, the part is bricked.

It can seemingly be avoided by completely killing all engines prior to diving, but I really am at a loss for what's really going on. Is this a known glitch with stock, where high altitude dives can freeze skin temps, inadvertently breaking the AHMS parts? Or is this all normal and I just don't get it?

Any chance you could upload a craft file somewhere so I can test this? I'm not having luck reproducing this. The engine gets sort of hot, but the AHMS itself never approaches 600k, and it won't cool anything until it hits that mark.

I ran a single engine up to about 20k and let it run until it started to stabilize around 740ish, then dove straight down.

Edit: After a couple more tests, I think I have a handle on what is happening. Inside the atmosphere, skin heating and internal heating have a different relationship than they do in a vacuum. Once in space, the part is essentially seen as a more singular object. Heating between the skin and internal components is dictated primarily by the skin to internal flux value (there's also skin to skin that's not tracked visibly). While in an atmosphere, you have convection to deal with. It wicks away heat at a pretty good clip (below entry speeds, anyway), and it's far outpacing the ability of the AHMS unit to transfer heat from the internal to the skin to be dumped, which prevents the AHMS skin from actually getting hot enough to dump heat. Unfortunately it doesn't have any effect on the internals though, so they will continue to heat up. That's my guess.

Edit2: I think it also has something to do with the firespitter plugin that runs the electric engines. I just launched one on a rocket up to 60k and ran it. Soon as it runs out of FSCoolant it starts overheating nearly instantly, but if you throttle down you can slow it down to watch. The skin temp of the AHMS freezes just as before, but the instant the engine explodes it starts heating up like normal again.

Edited August 19, 2015 by Randazzo

[Hagen von Tronje]

Any chance you could upload a craft file somewhere so I can test this? I'm not having luck reproducing this. The engine gets sort of hot, but the AHMS itself never approaches 600k, and it won't cool anything until it hits that mark.

I ran a single engine up to about 20k and let it run until it started to stabilize around 740ish, then dove straight down.

I'll see if I can upload the plane I've tested it with. The specific structure in question (and the only part of the craft that is thermally active since the rest remains at ambient temps) is built thus:

Firespitter Engine mount - attached to wing

Thermal washer - attached to engine mount

AHMS - attached to thermal washer

Firespitter electric propeller - attached directly to AHMS

No heat gets past the washer, or any that does is radiated by the wing faster than it can pass through, so the rest of the craft is practically inert for this. The assembly described rises to 600K rather slowly as I ascend; with one AHMS it will rise in temp at very high altitudes but that doesn't seem to be an issue, with two it will never go above 600K even when the engines and wings stop producing useful lift at 22km, but any dive from above ~15km seems to have a strong chance of resulting in the problem described unless engines are killed first.

It might as well be noted that this doesn't happen every single time. Sometimes I've done nosedives from 20km with no problem even with engines running, others I've done simple heading changes at 15km and engines overheat. The only thing that seems absolutely consistent is that so long as you either change altitude slowly, or stop all active generation of heat, you seem to avoid it. But it happens often enough that if I try a couple times, I can be assured to make it happen.

Only fix I found is to land and either save and reload, or time warp until the entire craft is magically updated to ambient ground temps, at which point everything functions normally again. Attempting to let it cool conventionally (i.e. without timewarp) will get the core temp down (very very very slowly) but skin temps remain static.

EDIT response to your EDIT: That's kind of along the lines I was suspecting, that it's the interface between atmosphere and space that causes the issue. Do you have any suggested fix, or is it basically "be careful how high you fly until aerodynamics and thermals get fixed"?

Edited August 19, 2015 by Hagen von Tronje

[Randazzo]

Eh, I made another edit. I didn't realize you had posted again, sorry. Thread didn't update until I left it.

I'm more convinced it has something to with how the firespitter plugin regulates heat via the FSCoolant and it's overriding the AHMS.

[Hagen von Tronje]

Eh, I made another edit. I didn't realize you had posted again, sorry. Thread didn't update until I left it.

I'm more convinced it has something to with how the firespitter plugin regulates heat via the FSCoolant and it's overriding the AHMS.

Ah, well it's good that at least you were able to replicate it, so I don't feel crazy.

Either way I still continue using it, they do a great job and killing engines before diving isn't that bad, just have to do all maneuvers at 10km or so for safety. Thanks for all your work and for looking into this!

[Randazzo]

Ah, well it's good that at least you were able to replicate it, so I don't feel crazy.

Either way I still continue using it, they do a great job and killing engines before diving isn't that bad, just have to do all maneuvers at 10km or so for safety. Thanks for all your work and for looking into this!

I messed around with this a bit more tonight, and I was incorrect in regards to Firespitter and FScoolant. The AHMS returning to normal function after the firespitter engine exploded is a function of occlusion and convection. It exhibits the same behavior if any heat generating part is in front of it in the airflow.

In short, the answer must unfortunately be "Don't do that." Hopefully it won't put too much of a kink in your electric drone plans.

[smjjames]

Hey Randazzo, while I was doing a suicide burnup in Eves atmosphere, I got hit by a spam of:

NullReferenceException: GetRef
  at (wrapper managed-to-native) UnityEngine.AnimationState:set_normalizedTime (single)

  at ModuleAnimateHeat.UpdateHeatEffect () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

  at ModuleAnimateHeat.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

While exceptiondetector seemed to be linking it to KSP (and maybe the error actually IS coming from KSP), I looked at the output log and it appears that it happened right after the radiator panels got destroyed.

Output log:http://sta.sh/08eknztl1qm The spam kept going until I switched around to one of the other debris flying around.

[Randazzo]

Hey Randazzo, while I was doing a suicide burnup in Eves atmosphere, I got hit by a spam of:

NullReferenceException: GetRef
  at (wrapper managed-to-native) UnityEngine.AnimationState:set_normalizedTime (single)

  at ModuleAnimateHeat.UpdateHeatEffect () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

  at ModuleAnimateHeat.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

While exceptiondetector seemed to be linking it to KSP (and maybe the error actually IS coming from KSP), I looked at the output log and it appears that it happened right after the radiator panels got destroyed.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/smjjames/screenshot47_zpsywgrxpsb.png

Output log:http://sta.sh/08eknztl1qm The spam kept going until I switched around to one of the other debris flying around.

Probably caused by the elements of the radiator panels that have an emissive heat animation present being ripped off. Seems likely.

They can be retracted prior to hitting the atmosphere and don't work well inside it anyway. I'd suggest that.

[bonesbro]

@pellinor, the node sizes for the 2.5m and 3.75m Thermal Washers are incorrect. They are all size 1 and should be size 2 and 3 respectively.

Change this bit on the 2.5m washer:

node_stack_top = 0.0, 0.075, 0.0, 0.0, 1, 0.0, 1
node_stack_bottom = 0.0, -0.075, 0.0, 0.0, -1, 0.0, 1

to make the last number a 2:

node_stack_top = 0.0, 0.075, 0.0, 0.0, 1, 0.0, 2
node_stack_bottom = 0.0, -0.075, 0.0, 0.0, -1, 0.0, 2

Same thing with the 3.75m part; make the last number a 3 instead of a 1.

[Randazzo]

@pellinor, the node sizes for the 2.5m and 3.75m Thermal Washers are incorrect. They are all size 1 and should be size 2 and 3 respectively.

Change this bit on the 2.5m washer:

node_stack_top = 0.0, 0.075, 0.0, 0.0, 1, 0.0, 1
node_stack_bottom = 0.0, -0.075, 0.0, 0.0, -1, 0.0, 1

to make the last number a 2:

node_stack_top = 0.0, 0.075, 0.0, 0.0, 1, 0.0, 2
node_stack_bottom = 0.0, -0.075, 0.0, 0.0, -1, 0.0, 2

Same thing with the 3.75m part; make the last number a 3 instead of a 1.

That changes the visualrepresentation in the editor and I left them small as the washers are thin. The actual node sizes are defined by "bulkheadProfiles".

[Hagen von Tronje]

I messed around with this a bit more tonight, and I was incorrect in regards to Firespitter and FScoolant. The AHMS returning to normal function after the firespitter engine exploded is a function of occlusion and convection. It exhibits the same behavior if any heat generating part is in front of it in the airflow.

In short, the answer must unfortunately be "Don't do that." Hopefully it won't put too much of a kink in your electric drone plans.

Hi,

thank you for testing this so much. I also have done all I can to figure this out, and I think you are correct. Testing other parts as heat sources gives the same result, adding heat sinks or other methods of "buffering" really has no effect and obviously isn't worth the mass on an aircraft.

On the other hand the basic functionality of it is fantastic once you learn to cope with this. I can fly reliably at 15-20km on Kerbin and achieve nearly Mach 1 with props, the only caveat is that you simply kill engines to dive and don't maneuver at extreme altitude. Also did some tests with NFE nuclear reactors, they perform great on that too...and in fact I've built a kinda-working nuclear powered AHMS cooled propeller quadruplane SSTO with plasma thruster final stage that looks ludicrous yet somehow space-steampunk. Kinda makes me want to do some Flash Gordon type things.

[Randazzo]

Minor update, creates a custom category in the VAB/SPH for Heat Management parts.

[Randazzo]

So I'm noticing a trend of 0.21a being downloaded an awful lot. Nothing wrong with that per se, but if there's something wrong with the newer versions I'm not noticing (and I use it regularly), I sure would appreciate being enlightened.

As always I'll assume no response means everything is going perfectly.

[dboi88]

are the radiators supposed to expand like a solar panel would? i only get the activate button and they don't move, they look like they should expand

[Randazzo]

are the radiators supposed to expand like a solar panel would? i only get the activate button and they don't move, they look like they should expand

Yes, they are supposed to extend. As of version 0.25 they use the stock radiator module; Prior to that they used the Deployable Solar Panel module to approximate radiators.

I'll need more information to help at all, such as, KSP version, Heat Management Version, and any mods that might be affecting it.

Standard troubleshooting step: Delete HeatManagement and reinstall fresh. Remember to delete the AltStockTech file if you don't want the tech distribution.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Randazzo

[dboi88]

Hi, thanks for responding so quickly.

I love the mod by the way, i can finally get my big mining unit working without over heating! I'm running 0.26 HeatManagement and KSPv1.0.0.830, your post confused me as i had never seen radiator parts in stock, i guess my KSP is out of date?

[Randazzo]

Hi, thanks for responding so quickly.

I love the mod by the way, i can finally get my big mining unit working without over heating! I'm running 0.26 HeatManagement and KSPv1.0.0.830, your post confused me as i had never seen radiator parts in stock, i guess my KSP is out of date?

Yep. That's the problem. You'll either need to update KSP or download Heat Management version 0.24b or earlier. You can find them by going to this page and clicking on "Changelog".

Edit: If you have a lot of stuff going on in your save or use a lot of mods, I'd suggest just downgrading Heat Management rather than risking breaking your save.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Randazzo