[WIP][Parts & Plug-In] Engines Temperature Sensor [0.1 15/09/2014]

[Justin Kerbice]

Hi everyone,

you may have already noticed that engines can overheat, but there is no way to know what is happening and how much is temperature increase and we don't have any mean to cool them down. That's why I made this, the ENgines TEmperature SensOr (or EnTeSo), to monitor engine temp in real time and give some means to cool them down in any conditions (in or out atmosphere, at low or high altitude and while running or not).

In the pic below you can see the sensor in action:

There is also a sequence of pics showing how amazingly effective cooling is in KSP (as in 40 seconds, a Mansail cool down from 2558.2 ° to -34.4 °, Celcius scale is assumed). Considering cooling is space is less effective as we may first thought, despite the very low temperature in the dark, the stock parts looks like to be magically cooled down.

But engines can still overheat and explode, especially under heavy duty (pushing an heavy mass) or when they are close together.

Overheat bar by the way looks like to be displayed when engine temp > maxtemp - 1100 (almost) °, maxtemp as defined in part.

With maxtemp = 3600, overheating condition start at ~ 2500 °.

Fuel tanks connected to an engine don't really get high temperature (in some previous experiments, a FLT-800 connected to a LVT-30 engine get only 200-300°C as far as I remember, using stock thermometer connected to it)

Also, maxtemp of most parts are 3600, do you know a lot of materials which can keep their current solid phase as such temperature ?

Tungsten have the top melting point of all metals (3414 °C according to wikipedia) at normal pressure.

For the record, all parts have some undisplayed parameters:

heatConductivity = 0.12

heatDissipation = 0.12

(seen in Part class)

I think of modifying these values for stock/all parts by default and add passive/active cooling system with better values.

And add these parts:

- one radial passive heatink & one surface passive heatsink

- 2 or 3 active cooling systems: one computer fan surface attached, one which looks like an intake to use in front for maximum efficiency and another one which could be used anywhere in the stack.

+ use of Kelvin (better as KSP use International System of Units) and Farenheit scales.

Status:

- temperature reading ok (simple ModulesEngines(FX) classes extended + ModuleManager patch for all engines using these two modules)

For heating dissipation, I don't really want to make something as accurate to our real word and as complicated as KSPI or Near Future parts which use thermodynamics rules I guess to do the job.

DOWNLOAD

version 0.1

License: Whatever license 1.1

EDIT: temperature looks like to be in Celcius degree, as we have a pleasant 19° at ground level, water is liquid (but may be very very salty as nothing sink), ground is not fully covered by ice and snow, we've got contrails and temperature can be very low (-200°), so it definitely can't be the Kelvin scale.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Justin Kerbice
alpha release added

[ABZB]

Excellent! I am very interested in this. Real Fuels currently has a heat pump module/part, but it is very unrealistic - it drops itself down to ~-250, and charges a fixed EC cost per unit heat deleted. A realistic system (that doesn't also remove all of ones EC in 5 seconds flat)...

[Starwaster]

Excellent! I am very interested in this. Real Fuels currently has a heat pump module/part, but it is very unrealistic - it drops itself down to ~-250, and charges a fixed EC cost per unit heat deleted. A realistic system (that doesn't also remove all of ones EC in 5 seconds flat)...

If it's unrealistic, it's because of the unrealistic heat system in the stock game.

Firstly, in REAL life it actually does cost a fixed amount of energy to remove a fixed amount of heat from a system. Both of which can be measured and budgeted for in real life.

Secondly, what we currently have in the game is not heat it is temperature.

Thirdly, the rate at which heat is removed by the heat pump is influenced by the rate at which the stock game is trying to dump it back in. There are potential ways around it that have been suggested that revolve around adjusting dissipation and transfer but it's too easy to make parts explode that way.

Fourthly, I have NEVER experienced the heat pump draining all EC in 5 seconds. Is that exaggeration? If it is not, then why in heck haven't you filed some kind of bug report in the RF forum instead of some off handed remark here for people to chance upon?

[Justin Kerbice]

A 0.1 pre-release has been added for download, enjoy reading the actual temperature of your engine(s).

@ABZB: I have never wrote I have any intention to make a "realistic" or accurate thing, but if an expert in thermodynamics and/or cooling systems wants to help, he/she's welcome .