Steam Turbine Optimal Setup 1 boiler/ 40 turbines
This test platform is the culmination of approximately 40hrs of testing with the goal to figure out all the quirks of steam turbines. The design process iterated over several combinations of pumps, turbines, and condensers to conclude with this design. The upper limit of turbines seems to be somewhere between 40-80 turbines for a single boiler but more testing would be needed to narrow it down.
For the boiler, it produces 35L/s of steam per degree over 100. A single turbine will take 60L/s of steam at up to 60atm. A steam controller was developed to automatically do the math and create a setpoint based on number of steam turbines in the loop. This controller is available separately from the workshop at : [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3621272372]https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3621272372[/url]
This platform uses a single pump in each loop process loop. Iterations with multiple pumps were used and there was loss of performance in the system when multiples were used. A single pump per process loop was the simplest and most efficient.
For Condensers, it would seem they convert steam to water at a similar rate to the boiler. For every degree above 100 that the boiler is, enough cooling is needed to keep the condenser below 100 the same or greater for a stable closed loop steam system. For example, if boiler setpoint is 140, the condenser temp should be <60 for optimal operation. This is most easily achieved by multiple condensers when the setpoint is high enough to share the load.
For 20 steam turbines 1 condenser was sufficient. 40 required 2 due to the boiler setpoint overwhelming the cooling capacity of either a single radiator or heat exchanger.
Pre cooling of the steam before it enters the condenser is a huge help to keep the condensers from becoming heat soaked and increases their efficiency as well.
For the heat exchangers, they can be substituted out in this design for smaller ones or 5x5 radiator if you are running less turbines very easily.
I hope you take a look around and power this build up to see for yourself what can be done with a simple steam system! It generates 32,000 electrical power at a rate of 3 coal/min!
