Turbine for electrical generation?

[THX1138]

I'd like to be able to generate power by driving a turbine while travelling through the atmosphere. Perhaps some or all of the jet engines could do this; I think that's a real-life thing to power certain systems of passenger jets if the engines fail. 

[pincushionman]

You mean like a RAT?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_air_turbine

[THX1138]

3 hours ago, pincushionman said:

You mean like a RAT?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_air_turbine

Yeah, I guess that's what I was thinking off. I thought it was part of the engine though. I've no idea how jet engines work.

[RocketSquid]

Yep, a RAT. There was a mod for those, but it is lost to the mists of 1.1.

[Van Disaster]

The RAT is the emergency turbine, usually power is taken directly off the jets - which KSP does already, mostly. The other power source is the APU, which is just a small jet engine that only generates electrical power ( and sometimes bleed air iirc ) - that's there so the main engines can be shut down, and generally isn't used in flight.

Making an intake into a RAT should be a simple MM patch using the stock ISRU converter module.

[pincushionman]

Given that the game doesn't simulate part failure, what use do you forsee for a RAT?

An APU could be made from a fuel cell configed to run off IntakeAir instead of oxidizer, but isit useful for anythig besides running ISRU on Kerbin or Laythe?

[NSEP]

I think those kind of wind Turbines could come in handy. (Expect alot more compact)

Maybe with an automatic movement feature (Just like the solar panels) That change the size of the blades to ajust the speed, because if you are on Duna, i expect you geting 100x less power that on Kerbin with the same size.

[Van Disaster]

2 hours ago, pincushionman said:

An APU could be made from a fuel cell configed to run off IntakeAir instead of oxidizer, but isit useful for anythig besides running ISRU on Kerbin or Laythe?

I've MM'd APUs and LF/O generators into cockpits for some time now - the APU is pretty useful given KSP jets don't produce *any* power at idle, so you can run out on a long glide in the dark. Wouldn't be enough for isru though.

[Alshain]

5 hours ago, NSEP said:

Maybe with an automatic movement feature (Just like the solar panels) That change the size of the blades to ajust the speed, because if you are on Duna, i expect you geting 100x less power that on Kerbin with the same size.

From a realism standpoint, you wouldn't use small scale wind power on Duna.  The planet is a Mars analog and that is all dirt and sand.  The complication of small scale wind turbines is that it works with moving parts, parts which clog with dirt and dust.  Of course solar panels face the same issue, however Spirit and Opportunity have been able to use the wind to clean the panels, something that wouldn't really be possible with a clogged turbine.

Large turbines we use on Earth are less susceptible to small grains of sand.  Their blades are large enough and strong enough to soldier on and break up potential clogs in most cases.  Though they still require maintenance.

People frequently request an electric propeller for Duna here on the forums, and this reasoning is why I question that would be a wise choice for Squad to make.  It's just unrealistic to be effective.  KSP has always been an extension of real world or even potential real world space exploration, there really is no potential for wind turbines or electric propellers on Mars, therefore we don't need them on Duna.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Alshain

[NSEP]

20 minutes ago, Alshain said:

From a realism standpoint, you wouldn't use small scale wind power on Duna.  The planet is a Mars analog and that is all dirt and sand.  The complication of small scale wind turbines is that it works with moving parts, parts which clog with dirt and dust.  Of course solar panels face the same issue, however Spirit and Opportunity have been able to use the wind to clean the panels, something that wouldn't really be possible with a clogged turbine.

Large turbines we use on Earth are less susceptible to small grains of sand.  Their blades are large enough and strong enough to soldier on and break up potential clogs in most cases.  Though they still require maintenance.

People frequently request an electric propeller for Duna here on the forums, and this reasoning is why I question that would be a wise choice for Squad to make.  It's just unrealistic to be effective.  KSP has always been an extension of real world or even potential real world space exploration, there really is no potential for wind turbines or electric propellers on Mars, therefore we don't need them on Duna.

Ok, im not a wind turbine specialist, so you know that.

[Alshain]

6 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Ok, im not a wind turbine specialist, so you know that.

Well neither am I.  But I did work in electronics that were fitted on natural gas wells.  We were always researching ways to provide power for these devices. Wind was summarily ruled out because of these complications. FWIW though, look up pictures of vertical turbines, if they were to implement wind turbines for bases (not aircraft) that would likely be their design as they tend to be much more compact and easier to construct.

[NSEP]

6 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Well neither am I.  But I did work in electronics that were fitted on natural gas wells.  We were always researching ways to provide power for these devices. Wind was summarily ruled out because of these complications. FWIW though, look up pictures of vertical turbines, if they were to implement wind turbines for bases (not aircraft) that would likely be their design as they tend to be much more compact and easier to construct.

Interesting!

[Alshain]

6 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Interesting!

They are pretty fun.  You can build a vertical turbine from a soda bottle and some copper wire.  It's a good science fair project if you have young kids

Edited July 25, 2016 by Alshain

[FleshJeb]

I modded a regular jet engine by editing the config file: Cutting the thrust by 100, multiplying the electrical generation by 70, and dividing the ISP by 100. Works like a dream for land-trains.

 

I need to get better at writing Module Manager patches.

[kBob]

How about a nice very efficient thermocouple device (@Alsahm mentioning gas wells/pipelines brought this to mind)?  Although Peltiers are pretty expensive for the amount of electricity you can get from them, they would nevertheless be able to generate electricity from an idling engine without adding any significant mass.  Wouldn't work if an engine was completely off of course.  Given how reliable parts in KSP are you wouldn't have to worry about them breaking though they could overheat but the part should include an attached cooler so they could just be given a standard overheat that's not a problem except maybe for re-entry like any other part.  Now for a significant amount of electricity you'd have to have a good sized device, but given how large thermometers are in KSP I don't see that as a problem .

[Joonatan1998]

I think an dual mode electric propeller/turbine could be nice.
Just make sure it doesn't lead to infinite electricity with itself/rover wheels.

Could also work as a wind turbine.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Joonatan1998

[mattinoz]

There is no wind on any planet in KSP so no need for ground wind turbine.

Still an engine that converts drag to electric charge would be useful.

[Van Disaster]

1 hour ago, mattinoz said:

There is no wind on any planet in KSP so no need for ground wind turbine.

Still an engine that converts drag to electric charge would be useful.

That's basically called "an intake", only instead of producing IntakeAir it produces ElectricCharge or whatever the actual resource name is. Idling engines really ought to use some token amount of fuel ( gives you a reason to turn them off, too ) so they can produce a token amount of charge.

Windmills aren't going to work on Mars - while there's 100mph+ winds frequently, there's so little atmosphere that someone walking around in it probably wouldn't even notice ( other than the 100mph dust ).

Edited July 26, 2016 by Van Disaster

[Joonatan1998]

1 hour ago, mattinoz said:

There is no wind on any planet in KSP so no need for ground wind turbine.

Still an engine that converts drag to electric charge would be useful.

Addition of windmills would obiviously require the adding of wind. Wind would make planets more intresting.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Joonatan1998

[magnemoe]

16 hours ago, Alshain said:

Well neither am I.  But I did work in electronics that were fitted on natural gas wells.  We were always researching ways to provide power for these devices. Wind was summarily ruled out because of these complications. FWIW though, look up pictures of vertical turbines, if they were to implement wind turbines for bases (not aircraft) that would likely be their design as they tend to be much more compact and easier to construct.

Why not an engine running on the natural gas? Know the classical oil pumps run on that. if you just need a few watt for control electronic solar is an option most places. 
 

[Alshain]

4 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Why not an engine running on the natural gas? Know the classical oil pumps run on that. if you just need a few watt for control electronic solar is an option most places. 
 

We have that.  It's rocket fuel.  The game oversimplifies it to "Liquid Fuel" but rocket fuel on Earth is often liquid hydrogen (it can also be kerosene which is petroleum based).  Other rockets use hypergolic compounds (two or more compounds that spontaneously ignite when coming into contact with one another).  Your monopropellants include hydrogen peroxide, nitrous oxide, and hydrazine.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Alshain

[THX1138]

1 hour ago, Alshain said:

We have that.  It's rocket fuel.  The game oversimplifies it to "Liquid Fuel" but rocket fuel on Earth is often liquid hydrogen (it can also be kerosene which is petroleum based).  Other rockets use hypergolic compounds (two or more compounds that spontaneously ignite when coming into contact with one another).  Your monopropellants include hydrogen peroxide, nitrous oxide, and hydrazine.

I think he was talking about in real life. They were talking about someone's job working with natural gas mining or something.

[Alshain]

7 hours ago, THX1138 said:

I think he was talking about in real life. They were talking about someone's job working with natural gas mining or something.

Yeah, that was me.

Edited July 27, 2016 by Alshain

[Wjolcz]

I was actually about to ask what they could be good for, but if weather ever becomes a thing they would be great for electricity generation for bases (if someone didn't want to use the RTG or solar panels for some reason).

[THX1138]

4 hours ago, Veeltch said:

I was actually about to ask what they could be good for, but if weather ever becomes a thing they would be great for electricity generation for bases (if someone didn't want to use the RTG or solar panels for some reason).

I want to send some probes into Jool and have them radio back the science data and it requires a lot of energy. The atmosphere analyser data in particular requires a lot energy.