So, how do you get heat to transfer between parts?

[NuclearNut]

So I have been having fun in KSP, setting up a mun base and thought, in words very close to these "I wonder if I could build a nuclear power plant there?" So I have been designing something to bring there. I tend to like to sorta RP my engineering choices, and because this was a nice NPP I intended to bring there I decided I would include a confinement (containments are for wussies) building and a control room. So I built it, below are some pictures of it. It should be noted that I intend to make the top a landing pad for transports and add landing legs to the bottom

The exterior of MR-1

The control room of MR-1

Now I set this up, and I had a minor problem, The reactor seemed to have an awful tendency to overheat, and for some reason the radiator units did nothing even while the unit was melting through the launch pad. (I seriously wonder why the KSP version of the NRC has not knocked on my door and asked me to stop my nuclear operations at this point) So I am asking this, is there any way to transfer the heat to the radiators I set up surrounding the confinement building, or do the radiators have to be touching the reactor unit?

[Streetwind]

Looks like you are using stock surface radiator panels. These are not suitable to cool this specific reactor, for multiple reasons.

1.) The radiator panel must be attached to the heat source. Stock KSP offers two types of radiators; the flat surface panels you used here, and the deployable "thermal control systems". Only the latter actively pull heat from hot parts all over the ship. The former simply have a high conduction factor, meaning heat flows easily into them from adjacent parts. Therefore they must be directly attached to whatever they are to cool, and they are not directly attached in your construction.

2.) A part's ability to radiate heat is proportional to its own temperature (exponentially so). A part's ability to transfer heat by conduction is also proportional to its own temperature, and that of the other part(s) it interacts with. This means that the radiator will need to be quite hot to work properly, but in addition, the source part (the reactor) needs to be even hotter so that there can still be a significant heat flow towards the radiator.

Unfortunately, the reactor is, by its very nature, heavily shielded and insulated, and doesn't conduct well to neighboring parts regardless of the temperature differential. Also, doesn't like to get hot - it in fact has fairly stringent cooling requirements. If it exceeds its nominal temperature (around 800 to 850 K, should be given in the part stats/description), it will start to lose power output. If you go too high over the nominal temperature, there will not be any power output left at all. And if you go even higher, the core will start to melt down, causing increasing permanent damage until the reactor is ultimately destroyed.

Therefore you must use the deployable "thermal control system" type stock radiators, or a comparable solution from another mod, in order to be able to actively draw heat from the reactor. They don't have to be attached directly to the reactor, just to the same vessel - so you could still build your own "confinement chamber" and have maybe an attached "cooling tower" which carries the radiators.

Edited August 19, 2015 by Streetwind

[QuesoExplosivo]

2.) A part's ability to radiate heat is proportional to its own temperature (exponentially so).

Actually, it's the fourth power of the temperature, by the Stefan-Boltzmann law.

[Fearless Son]

What Streetwind said. Standard radiators only radiate heat from the parts they are directly attached to. They might disperse some heat that convects over into them from adjacent parts, but that is quite inefficient. The thermal control systems, in addition to being deployable radiator panels, come with a set of internal heat convection pipes run throughout the craft, drawing heat from the hottest parts first and radiating them out.

In other words, build your containment chamber with the thermal control systems instead of the radiators. Granted, this might wreck the aesthetic you are going for since the thermal control systems deploy out like solar panels, but if you find a way to make them part of your sartorial vision, they would be ideal.

[Overland]

thankyou..a little off topic but very helpful radiator information for locomotives