Approved Submission KAM Fusion Generator

Link leads to a dead-end.

Fixed

The .gif pictures you used were from wikimedia commons. I know we allow linking to wiki stuff, but uploading the works of someone else seems a bit over the line.

I'll take outside advice on this one, because I'm not sure if this is purely to make a mockery of SARP, is a serious submission or some combination of the two.

Most principle question is, how does this work with a fusion powerplant? You've got nuclear power that, instead of directly powering something, feeds helium gas into a somehow sealed system of pistons?

Also, ping @Wes for the art situation.

It's a nuclear stirling engine which was designed in 1816 by robert stirling.

The big thing with Nuclear Power is that it generates heat. You then need something to convert that heat into electricity. The USuses steam turbines, this uses gas piston. I feel I explained it VERY well.

Long story short, it's a combustion engine that uses air instead of petroleum to move pistons which turn a crank shaft.
Here is a nice informational video on it
It fell off the face of the earth for a while, but it is coming back and people are starting to do a lot more research on them. Given they are quiet, as there are no explosions, it's perfect for the Vekimen.

It is a Nuclear engine because it uses Nuclear Heat to bring the "Hot" chamber to high temperatures. Just like how our nuclear generators use Nuclear Heat to boil steam. There is nothing "Mocking" about this. It's a highly viable method of energy generation, despite right now them being rather heavy.

As for the pictures, they are from Wikipedia Commons, which means that they are fair use and are able to be used freely. Links to pages for these specific pictures below

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stirling_Animation.gif
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alpha_Stirling.gif

I forgot to add attribution, will do that now

Not that I needed too, even though I won't remove the attribution on the page.

Both of these images are hosted by Wikimedia Commons under the GNU Free Documentation Licence.


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The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially.
Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.

This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software.

We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
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So to carry on the point, both .gifs were literally licenced to be used freely either commercially or noncommercially. To top it off, both .Gifs are also hosted by Wikimedia Commons, which, where if they were not would start to cause complications. Royalty Free .Gifs

I haven't breached any copywrite as far as I am aware.

As a note, IDK how to move the images to the Royalty Free part of the hosting. I put it in Vekimen out of force of habit.

Why is the stirling engine not linked within the article? Whether or not Wes wants you to keep the art, you should link to the wiki page from which you borrowed.

I'm still taking outside help on this. I'd like to know what other people think.

I'm just curious why it making sound matters. Is this meant to be deployed in a stealth ship? Last I checked, sound-proofing rooms was a thing. Can't spot anything weird beyond this consistent throw-back to it being a quiet design. I also doubt that the design's volume stays consistent when up-scaling. That tends to be a very rare trait with any technology that involves moving parts.

This doesn't look like a nuclear reactor. Does it use cold fusion? It doesn't seem it has any way to generate or contain the heat or pressure required to sustain a nuclear reaction. There's other magical tech in the setting, sure, but I don't see the magic, here. Does it use gravitics? Force fields? Exotic matter to catalyze the reaction? Miniature black holes? Anything?

Most tech articles about starship power plants only talk about the reactor and its fuel, the turbine usually isn't worth mentioning...

If my understanding is right, this system is actually two. There's a fusion reactor on one side, and there's these Stirling engines on the other. It's not efficient by SARP standards, but it IS pretty quiet, which makes sense for Vekimen hearing.

The system works by using a heat differential on different parts of the engine to move a crankshaft. Thus, the powerplant heats up one part of the engine, which works to move the piston, then moves to a cooler part of the engine, system equalizes, and returns to its previous state. That's why the animations are useful.

On another note, can you point to a power system on the wiki that actually describes the nuclear reaction it uses? Cause I can't find one.

Edit: The one that you pointed to in the last submission article doesn't talk about a fusion reaction, unless just mentioning that its cold fusion is enough, which should mean that this article is just as valid. I did find two that do though. https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=faction:gartagens:fusion_reactor https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=hidden_sun_clan:technology:fusion_reactor Any Yamataian systems have this much detail?

IDK what folks are having a hard time understanding. I really don't.

Doshii Jun said:

If my understanding is right, this system is actually two.

Click to expand...

It's one damned system. It works on the exact same principal as the Geshrinari Fusion Reactor, only instead of using a Nuclear Reaction to heat up steam, to turn a turbine, it heats up air, to move pistons. Nuclear Reactors are in the business of HEAT, not electricity. You need something to turn that heat into electricity and on its base model, this system is actually 50% efficient. The exact same level of efficiency as a steam turbine.

I'll explain it again.

One chamber of the device is heated by a Nuclear Reactor which uses Fission or Fusion to generate heat. The other is cooled down. The Stirling engine is a Nuclear Generator because it using nuclear reactions to generate heat.

Have we all come to an understanding here? Nuclear Reactors generate heat, and you need something to take that heat and turn it into electricity. This isn't two systems, it's one "System" just like the other reactor. The reactor on its own doesn't produce any energy. It is a nuclear generator. It generates electricity using the heat of a nuclear reactor.

I think it's less that I'm not understanding, and more that the explanation, while clear, sounds like an explanation of a door that only describes the hinge technology, briefly stops to mention that there is a door, and indeed, the hinges interact with this door somehow, and says no other words about it.

This article is harmless. It doesn't do anything except establish how the Vekimen convert heat energy into electrical energy. But it's not a fusion generator, it's a substitute for a generic turbine that apparently uses some sort of generic fusion reactor that isn't described in the article.

I don't think it should be either necessary or effective to bamboozle anyone with science and technical details that are actually irrelevant to the technology which is being described. If describing a fusion reactor is too much work, it's also possible to just reference one that someone else has described already.

This is why it can be easier to just make it up. Do most systems go into the detail of the HSC or Geshrinari submissions? No. @Nashoba wanted to go into that much detail, but many of the rest of us like fusion batteries ala Exo-Squad, among other handwaved styles of power.

We ain't scientists.

So when I say "two systems," it's because you're using nuclear power as we understand it today. The reactor does not directly provide power; its heat is translated into movement, which then becomes useable energy. In SARP, we tend to skip that second part and just say "it's a reactor, we got power." The reactor does produce its own energy.

When you say, "I don't know why you guys don't understand this," it's because we're roleplaying in a setting where we have factions that tap alternate dimensions to obtain limitless energy. Fusion reactors are practically lower class (but refined to the extreme). Seeing a system that uses 20th-century Earth technology just to obtain power appears out of place. We understand it enough, but it's making us think about details that we just gloss as a general principle.

You also have the chip on your shoulder in general. I help put it there, so it's forgiven with me, but others have less intimate context for it, so forgive them their impatience with your attitude.

As to the art of the system, I still want @Wes to be OK with us using content from Wikimedia. Legally, I understand how the license works, and Wes has bought licenses for art in the past for commercial (SARP) purposes. I still prefer his OK, as this isn't visual content you made or bought.

I think there are practical concerns about how you can shrink this system down to fit in vehicles. You're not saving weight or size, that's for sure. But I can see how you might have a nuclear reactor on a starship where there's thrust produced from the reactions, and there's (waste?) heat that can be used for powering up other ship systems.

Let's do this — for starships, I see this working. For vehicles and starfighters, I don't know that you can fit a small-enough reactor. Depends on the fighter size.

So I give this my tentative approval, so long as the system is used for starships, not vehicles/fighters/mecha. Once those edits are made and Wes OKs using Wikimedia art, you'e good to go.

I have reviewed this submission in accordance with the Guide to Submission Reviewers.

Doshii Jun said:

We ain't scientists.

Click to expand...

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey, some of us are.

But joking aside, I'll throw in my two cents. Always sucks when I see posts like this that I can throw in on, but I'm at work and can't type. Anyway, quick disclosure, I'm going to go over this as the article stands, and not adding in any comments, this is because I feel like the wiki article needs to stand on its own.

A couple inconsistencies that muddy the water

KAM got to work, and with their previous knowledge created a Fusion Reactor that could run for several more years than their older generators on the same amount of fuel, and were able to shrink the generator down to the size of a typical car engine, power capabilities scaling in size

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It says they created the Fusion Reactor then the article exclusively uses the word "generator". Is there another system it's using that we're not aware of or is this a typo? Or, what's a Fusion Reactor and why is it capitalized?

Secondly

it does not need nuclear fuel to run, however, the Vekimen commonly use nuclear fuel given its high heat and long lifetime

Click to expand...

Then two sentences later

No explosions are used, no fuel, combustion is not a process in this engine, despite the similarities.

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Does it use fuel or does it not?

Echoing Legix on this part, why do we need to know it's quiet? Are you trying to sell it to us? Do the Yamatai engines sound like a cat getting mashed, and the Nepleslians sound like hard metal with beer bottles getting thrown against the wall?

Now on to the nitty-gritty.

The article tells us there are two chambers, a cold one and the hot one, however it doesn't specify which one is man-I mean-Vekimen influenced. I.e. which one is the one that drives the gases to expand? If the hot one is produced, then the cold chamber can be assumed to be room temperature, and how the vehicle addresses that head should be addressed in subsequent articles as that is large amount of heat to displace. If it's the cold one, how do the Vekimen put a large or small enough refrigerator to remove excess heat to force the Helium to contract?

Further, there is no power generation going on here. Yes, I know it utilizes the Ideal Gas Law, and trust me, I know how often molecules collide with one another in a closed system. However, this is a medium through which the power is transferred but itself isn't generated. The fusion reactor is creating the heat that is transferred to the hot chamber that is then cooled forcing the pistons to move back and forth. The reactor is what I think the article should be about, and have the pistons be a section of it.

As it stands if I were to have these in a room with me right now, the pistons would not move. I would have to apply energy to the system in some way to get them to start moving. As detailed as this section is about the pistons moving, there is little going on about the actual generator.

Cordinarr said:

Echoing Legix on this part, why do we need to know it's quiet? Are you trying to sell it to us? Do the Yamatai engines sound like a cat getting mashed, and the Nepleslians sound like hard metal with beer bottles getting thrown against the wall?

Click to expand...

Favorite line of the day.

Cordinarr said:

Does it use fuel or does it not?

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The device itself doesn't need to be fueled. You could take one and sit it on your hand and it will work. The Nuclear reactor needs fuel. The generator just uses the heat from Nuclear Reactions to heat the one chamber, and ((I did a bunch of research and stuff on this)) but cool the second plate with a high-efficiency refrigerant like Freon to cool the other chamber. Technically, the Vekimen are influencing both plates

Cordinarr said:

Echoing Legix on this part, why do we need to know it's quiet? Are you trying to sell it to us? Do the Yamatai engines sound like a cat getting mashed, and the Nepleslians sound like hard metal with beer bottles getting thrown against the wall?

Click to expand...

I mention it's quiet because if anyone were to be in a room with it, they would notice that it's REALLY quiet. Not only that but the Vekimen have really sensitive hearing so if it was a loud device, then it would not be nice for them to be near it.

I have made the edits, and from my PM conversation with @Wes he has moved the picture over to Creative Commons section of the sites image hosting er my request. He didn't take them down and the licences are free to redistribute, where reuploading is a method of redistribution. If I did it right, the attribution should be built into the image information, but I have maintained their attribution on the page.

I don't doubt you did your research on this. However, I think all of that needs to be explicitly stated since heat and how this system handles it is an engineering problem and this is a technology page.

As for the noise, and lack-there-of, my point was this: Why are aesthetics being talked about on a technology page? Some of the stuff I do in my lab at my job doesn't smell good (and on occasion, don't taste that well), but that doesn't matter because it fulfills its function as a reagent. As it reads now, it's not clear on why it being quiet is such an important deal. If it needs to be in there, maybe add something related to Vekimen and their hearing.