His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
12/23/10 03:09 PM
68.26.194.89
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I was thinking of the post http://www.sarna.net/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/159344/an/0/page/0#159344 where the hydrogen power plant I described was nit picked.
I would love to know how someone can get a fusion power plant to work in a battle mech. I know that a fusion power plant creates a great deal of heat. Well so what, how does that give power to the mech? You cant run a piece of equipment on heat.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.
I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
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Karagin
12/23/10 04:04 PM
72.178.75.99
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No but you could run it on steam...using the heat to move water around...OR you could use the heat to move other fluids around like hydraulics...just some ideas.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
12/23/10 04:11 PM
68.26.194.89
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That would require a boiler cooling devises collecting the water a large reservoir of water to be used. Which all would take up a great deal more space than what is available in the mech.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.
I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
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Karagin
12/23/10 05:01 PM
72.178.75.99
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And the same would be needed if they put a fission reactor in there...this is a game after all...fun but still a game and who says that stuff is not there, just smaller and working with other things to move and power the mech? An internal combustion engine runs belts that give power to things like an alternator which charges a battery that allows the radio and such to work...who is to say the fusion engine isn't doing something similar?
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/24/10 12:24 AM
97.100.133.59
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Quote:
I was thinking of the post http://www.sarna.net/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/159344/an/0/page/0#159344 where the hydrogen power plant I described was nit picked.
No one in that thread nitpicked the engine. I've re-read it several times and the engine isn't mentioned. A hydrogen power plant is a fine idea.
Quote:
You cant run a piece of equipment on heat.
Every thermal power plant in the real world disagrees with you. Starting with:
1) Your car is a heat engine.
2) Your local coal power plant is a heat engine.
3) Your local nuclear plant is a heat engine.
4) Your local geothermal plant is a heat engine.
etc.
Every car and 99% of electricity on the planet are power by heat engines. When I get into my car in the morning, turn the ignition, and get 300 horsepower of heat producing 100 horsepower of mechanical energy at the wheels, I know you can run equipment on heat even though it is costing me $3 a gallon in burned dinosaur-juice to do so.
Quote:
I would love to know how someone can get a fusion power plant to work in a battle mech
It's called magnetohydrodynamics and it's been a staple of engineering for 50 years. The ionized plasma in the donut-shaped reactor torus circulates along the magnetic field lines - in other words, you have a conductor spinning in a magnetic field. That's the definition of a "dynamo." Google "dynamo." If you have questions about what a dynamo is, please ask. I can provide links if you can't find them.
Edited by Cray (12/24/10 12:51 AM)
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His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
12/24/10 03:53 AM
68.26.174.253
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Quote:
Quote:
You cant run a piece of equipment on heat.
Every thermal power plant in the real world disagrees with you. Starting with:
1) Your car is a heat engine.
2) Your local coal power plant is a heat engine.
3) Your local nuclear plant is a heat engine.
4) Your local geothermal plant is a heat engine.
etc.
Every car and 99% of electricity on the planet are power by heat engines. When I get into my car in the morning, turn the ignition, and get 300 horsepower of heat producing 100 horsepower of mechanical energy at the wheels, I know you can run equipment on heat even though it is costing me $3 a gallon in burned dinosaur-juice to do so.
Yes they make heat but the heat by its self does not run anything with out doing something else.
1) The heat from the car expands air and pushes a piston
2,3&4) The heat boils water and that expanding water vapor pushes a piston or a turbine.
I would love to know how someone can get a fusion power plant to work in a battle mech
It's called magnetohydrodynamics and it's been a staple of engineering for 50 years. The ionized plasma in the donut-shaped reactor torus circulates along the magnetic field lines - in other words, you have a conductor spinning in a magnetic field. That's the definition of a "dynamo." Google "dynamo." If you have questions about what a dynamo is, please ask. I can provide links if you can't find them.
Wikis explanation is a lot more complicated than I understand. I do understand the basics. Thanks for the explanation. Now to go back to wiki and find out how a matter-antimatter engine can power a spaceship
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.
I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
|
Cray
12/24/10 03:21 PM
97.100.133.59
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Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
I would love to know how someone can get a fusion power plant to work in a battle mech
It's called magnetohydrodynamics and it's been a staple of engineering for 50 years. The ionized plasma in the donut-shaped reactor torus circulates along the magnetic field lines - in other words, you have a conductor spinning in a magnetic field. That's the definition of a "dynamo." Google "dynamo." If you have questions about what a dynamo is, please ask. I can provide links if you can't find them.
Wikis explanation is a lot more complicated than I understand. I do understand the basics. Thanks for the explanation. Now to go back to wiki and find out how a matter-antimatter engine can power a spaceship
Matter-antimatter rockets work by any of several means.
The first is a straightforward heat engine: the radiation released by the matter-antimatter reaction occurs in a bath of some reaction mass (hydrogen, typically), and the hot hydrogen is blown out the tailpipe.
A variation on this is to let the radiation heat a high density metal like tungsten. The gamma rays and pions from electron/positron and proton/anti-proton reactions tend to be highly penetrating, so a lot of them would pass through a surrounding bath of hydrogen without transferring their heat. By using something like tungsten (almost twice as dense as lead), the radiation heats the tungsten and the tungsten can heat the reaction mass.
Secondly, you can try direct propulsion. Reaction products like pions respond to magnetic fields, so a magnetic rocket nozzle can make use of a direct M-AM reaction. However, these high energy/low mass reactions tend to produce highly efficient but low thrust propulsion.
Did you really want a wikipedia link? There are better ones out there. I've been using the hardcopy "The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer's Guide to Interstellar Travel," which has a great bundle of engineering studies on advanced propulsion and interstellar flight. This NASA news link is a good place to start:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/prop12apr99_1/
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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