How/when to use radiator parts (wiki)???

[Seaview123]

I've been looking through the Wiki and there doesn't seem to be anything on how or when to use the new radiator parts. I've also been seeing a lot of posts about phantom heating and saw this in one of my Mun landers (Playing a stock v1.0.4 game).

Does anyone have any suggestions on using the radiator parts (i.e., in what types of crafts or missions, how many to use, and where to place them to get the best effect)?

Thanks

Edited July 17, 2015 by Seaview123
Answered

[mattssheep4]

I haven't tested this extensively, but I figure placing radiators nearer to engines would be more effective than farther away. I put them on the fuel tanks nearest my engine stage. I'm no expert on, say, the difference between skin and part temps, but that's what makes sense to me.

[ajburges]

Community is still working out how to use them. Just like how SSTO design changed for 1.0, you need to give 2-3 weeks for a solid consensus to form.

Nukes had their thermal generation tempered, so they no longer have the same urgent need they had before.

For some of reason they help on reentry when they don't IRL.

Deployable radiators actively soak heat from all parts. As a consequence, they actually make the attached part hotter than normal. Fixed radiators follow normal conduction rules.

[Randazzo]

I've been looking through the Wiki and there doesn't seem to be anything on how or when to use the new radiator parts. I've also been seeing a lot of posts about phantom heating and saw this in one of my Mun landers (Playing a stock v1.0.4 game).

Does anyone have any suggestions on using the radiator parts (i.e., in what types of crafts or missions, how many to use, and where to place them to get the best effect)?

Thanks

Placement actually doesn't matter for the deployable radiators. They will automatically draw heat from across the entire ship from any part that exceeds it's default threshold, operating on the assumption that the vessel has heat pipes throughout to facilitate the transfer. The static radiators will draw heat only from the part they are attached to (unless I misunderstand), and should be attached as closely to the source of heat as possible (if not directly to it.)

How many you need really depends on what you need them for. The LV-N's are currently the only major source of heat in stock, but there are mods out there that have some heavy heat generating parts. Per Roverdude, two of the medium radiator panels were sufficient to keep a Nuclear Lightbulb engine from exploding during a recent stream, which burns about 18 times hotter than an LV-N. You could probably get away with small panels for LV-N's.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Randazzo

[Edax]

I've been looking through the Wiki and there doesn't seem to be anything on how or when to use the new radiator parts. I've also been seeing a lot of posts about phantom heating and saw this in one of my Mun landers (Playing a stock v1.0.4 game).

Does anyone have any suggestions on using the radiator parts (i.e., in what types of crafts or missions, how many to use, and where to place them to get the best effect)?

Thanks

I stuck a small passive radiator as close as possible to my LV-N, and it has overheated far less then it normally would have in 1.0.2. I'm not sure if placing it near the LV-N helps in any way, but in my eyes, why take the chance?

[Goddess Bhavani]

Radiators also help protect craft from overheating and exploding during re-entry. In case you don't want to put a heatshield on the ship for aesthetics reasons (or if you just can't, because its a spaceplane), then radiators help control temperature buildup during re-entry sequence.

If you spam many, many radiators all around a craft you could even nullify re-entry heating to some extent - tested by Facebook KSP groups lol

[Geschosskopf]

If you spam many, many radiators all around a craft you could even nullify re-entry heating to some extent - tested by Facebook KSP groups lol

Don't expect this to last. It rather goes against the way heat actually flows and has been pointed out as such.

[Reactordrone]

Radiators also help protect craft from overheating and exploding during re-entry. In case you don't want to put a heatshield on the ship for aesthetics reasons (or if you just can't, because its a spaceplane), then radiators help control temperature buildup during re-entry sequence.

If you spam many, many radiators all around a craft you could even nullify re-entry heating to some extent - tested by Facebook KSP groups lol

Don't expect this to last. It rather goes against the way heat actually flows and has been pointed out as such.

I'm not sure the radiators help dissipate reentry heat but they certainly add extra drag which can slow your vehicle below the heat spike threshold.

[Karpen]

If I may add a question:

Are radiators bugged? I have a ship with a couple of nuclear engines. Radiators on the Fuel Tanks attached to the engines.

But it simply does not work. The radiators do absolutely nothing. The engines heat up after a while and do not cool down, not even 0.1 degrees. When I then increase to 1000x time warp or so, they suddenly cool down all the way ...

Is this a known bug?

[Foxster]

I just haven't found a use for them.

Stuff that gets hot seems to be better fixed by not letting it get hot or by re-designed things, like sticking a nuke on it's own tank.

The only heat problems I have are the bugs introduced by the strange and complicated way they re-did heat. I've had a ship that's sitting in orbit, minding its own business, going "la-la-la, nice day for a spaceflight", when suddenly "Kabloowy!". Radiators don't help with that.

[Skorpychan]

I just haven't found a use for them.

Stuff that gets hot seems to be better fixed by not letting it get hot or by re-designed things, like sticking a nuke on it's own tank.

The only heat problems I have are the bugs introduced by the strange and complicated way they re-did heat. I've had a ship that's sitting in orbit, minding its own business, going "la-la-la, nice day for a spaceflight", when suddenly "Kabloowy!". Radiators don't help with that.

My Duna mission got stung by that. Repeatedly. It's cursed.

[Laie]

After some small amount of limited testing...

"Radiator panels" (the fixed type) assume the temperature of their parent part without noticable delay. There's also a smaller difference between core and skin temperature, but in my test case that difference wasn't very large even for the parent. In effect, they increase the surface area of the parent. Compared to fuel tanks of 16t and above, even the large panel doesn't provide much extra area, though. And anyway, radiation depends very much on temperature: in order to radiate well, a part has to be very hot. Which in this case means that the panel's parent has to be very hot -- a situation you probably want to avoid from the outset. Still, a panel or two may make the difference between a part going poof, or merely running dangerously hot. But as I said two sentences ago: if a part does not become dangerously hot, the panel will also have little to do.

"Thermal control systems" (the extendable swivel type) gather heat from all over the vessel. They can easily be the hottest part on the ship and thus also radiate disproportional amounts of heat. For purposes of heat managment, it does not matter where you place them. However, they will break if they collide with other parts of your vessel, so you better make sure they have enough elbow room.

So far, it seems as if the fixed radiators were nearly useless. However, when in atmosphere they may also help with shedding heat through convection. Think of a nosecone that gets really hot during reentry and continues to dump heat into a nearby part long after you've been through the worst of it. Or running a nuclear engine on a spaceplane, where nearby parts could conceivably become even hotter than the surrounding atmosphere. I did not test this, however.

Edited July 5, 2015 by Laie

[marce]

If I may add a question:

Are radiators bugged? I have a ship with a couple of nuclear engines. Radiators on the Fuel Tanks attached to the engines.

http://i.imgur.com/8aBGh7b.jpg

But it simply does not work. The radiators do absolutely nothing. The engines heat up after a while and do not cool down, not even 0.1 degrees. When I then increase to 1000x time warp or so, they suddenly cool down all the way ...

Is this a known bug?

I have the same problem, with a different engine (KW Griffon) though.

During ascent the engine quickly overheats (2400°C or so) while the attached radiators stay at about 14°C.

Since you have the same problem with stock engines maybe it's a bug?

[Dispatcher]

Extendable radiators are definitely intended for non-atmospheric deployment and use. When I test launched them deployed, they broke into many small falling parts.

[DCWarHound]

Fixed ones are for atmosphere use i guess.

Usually my intakes would explode when my SSTO SP reached 1000 m/s,added a basic radiator to each pre-cooler and they don't even overheat anymore.