'Aight so I've been wanting to make a thread on this for a while now, so I'mma do it.
Hello and welcome to Atomic Physics 101! So for a while now I've been wanting to do a very special build for my own sake: a nuclear power plant. In preparation for that project I want to practice first. Admittedly it's been a long time since I've used worldedit, so I'm a little rusty, but this'll help me get back on track.
I started off with some research, particularly pertaining to reactor cooling systems. Now I have the gist of how reactors work: essentially the idea is to boil water to turn a turbine; this is how we've done it since the first coal-fired public power plant 137 years ago, and it's worked out pretty well so far. Granted, it is the single most expensive method humans have come up with to boil water, but hey, it's effective.
You're probably familiar with the iconic cooling towers you see at the typical nuclear power plant (the large hyperboloid towers - known as induced draft towers - reaching as far up into the sky as a short sky scraper). However you'd probably be surprised to learn that those aren't the only kind of cooling towers used by nuclear plants. Other types include forced and induced draft towers, with a forced tower having a fan at the entrance of the tower and an induced tower have a fan at the exit. Each design has its own drawbacks and advantages, for example an induced draft designs are more efficient while forced draft designs can deal with greater amounts of static pressure.
For this project I've decided to go with an induced draft cooling tower which you can see here:
As for the reactor core, I really wanted to do some fancy experimental new reactor, but I figured I should save it for later and decided to go with a heavy-water pressurized reactor instead. I've gone ahead and assembled all the parts into a model cross section:
Image 1: Reactor core + heat exchanger
Image 2: Turbines + condenser
Image 3: Cooling tower + electric generator
I still need to add a lot of details such as the refueling floor, waste floor, control rods, and various safety systems.
Hello and welcome to Atomic Physics 101! So for a while now I've been wanting to do a very special build for my own sake: a nuclear power plant. In preparation for that project I want to practice first. Admittedly it's been a long time since I've used worldedit, so I'm a little rusty, but this'll help me get back on track.
I started off with some research, particularly pertaining to reactor cooling systems. Now I have the gist of how reactors work: essentially the idea is to boil water to turn a turbine; this is how we've done it since the first coal-fired public power plant 137 years ago, and it's worked out pretty well so far. Granted, it is the single most expensive method humans have come up with to boil water, but hey, it's effective.
You're probably familiar with the iconic cooling towers you see at the typical nuclear power plant (the large hyperboloid towers - known as induced draft towers - reaching as far up into the sky as a short sky scraper). However you'd probably be surprised to learn that those aren't the only kind of cooling towers used by nuclear plants. Other types include forced and induced draft towers, with a forced tower having a fan at the entrance of the tower and an induced tower have a fan at the exit. Each design has its own drawbacks and advantages, for example an induced draft designs are more efficient while forced draft designs can deal with greater amounts of static pressure.
As for the reactor core, I really wanted to do some fancy experimental new reactor, but I figured I should save it for later and decided to go with a heavy-water pressurized reactor instead. I've gone ahead and assembled all the parts into a model cross section:
Image 1: Reactor core + heat exchanger
Image 2: Turbines + condenser
Image 3: Cooling tower + electric generator
I still need to add a lot of details such as the refueling floor, waste floor, control rods, and various safety systems.
