In this article I will try to tell the basic principles of operation of most of the known nuclear reactors and show how to assemble them.
I will divide the article into 3 sections: nuclear reactor, mox nuclear reactor, liquid nuclear reactor. In the future, it is quite possible that I will add / change something. Also, please write only on the topic: for example, moments that I have forgotten or, for example, useful reactor circuits that give out high efficiency, just a big output, or involve automation. As for the missing crafts, I recommend using the Russian wiki or the game NEI.

Also, before working with reactors, I want to draw your attention that you need to install the reactor entirely in 1 chunk (16x16, the grid can be displayed by pressing F9). Otherwise, correct operation is not guaranteed, because sometimes time flows differently in different chunks! This is especially true for a liquid reactor that has many mechanisms in its device.

And one more thing: installing more than 3 reactors in 1 chunk can lead to disastrous consequences, namely lags on the server. And the more reactors, the more lags. Distribute them evenly over the area! Appeal to players playing on our project: when the administration has more than 3 reactors on 1 chunk (and they will find) all unnecessary will be demolished, because think not only about yourself but also about other players on the server. Lags are not to anyone's liking.

1. Nuclear reactor.

In essence, all reactors are energy generators, but at the same time, these are multi-block structures that are rather difficult for the player. The reactor starts working only after a redstone signal is applied to it.

Fuel.
The simplest type of nuclear reactor runs on uranium. Attention: take care of safety before working with uranium. Uranium is radioactive, and poisons the player with a non-removable poison that will hang until the end of the effect or death. It is necessary to create a chemical protection kit (yes, yes) from rubber, it will protect you from unpleasant effects.
The uranium ore that you find must be crushed, washed (optional), and thrown into a thermal centrifuge. As a result, we get 2 types of uranium: 235 and 238. By combining them on a workbench in a ratio of 3 to 6, we get uranium fuel that must be rolled into fuel rods in a conservator. You are already free to use the resulting rods in reactors as you please: in their original form, in the form of double or quadruple rods. Any uranium rods work for ~330 minutes, which is about five and a half hours. After their development, the rods turn into depleted rods that must be charged into a centrifuge (nothing more can be done with them). At the output, you will receive almost all 238 uranium (4 out of 6 per rod). 235 will turn uranium into plutonium. And if you can put the first one on the second round simply by adding 235, then do not throw out the second, plutonium will come in handy in the future.

Working area and schemes.
The reactor itself is a block (nuclear reactor) having an internal capacity and it is desirable to increase it to create more efficient circuits. At maximum magnification, the reactor will be surrounded on 6 sides (from all sides) by reactor chambers. If you have resources, I recommend using it in this form.
Ready reactor:

The reactor will give out energy immediately in eu / t, which means that you can simply hook up a wire to it and power it with what you need.
Although the reactor rods produce electricity, in addition they generate heat, which, if not dissipated, can lead to an explosion of the machine itself and all its components. Accordingly, in addition to fuel, you need to take care of cooling the working area. Attention: on the server, a nuclear reactor does not have passive cooling, either from the compartments themselves (as it is written on wikia) or from water / ice, on the other hand, it does not heat up from lava either. That is, the heating/cooling of the reactor core occurs exclusively through the interaction of the internal components of the circuit.

Scheme it- a set of elements consisting of reactor-cooling mechanisms as well as the fuel itself. It depends on how much energy the reactor will produce and whether it will overheat. Laughter can consist of rods, heat sinks, heat exchangers, reactor plates (the main and most commonly used), as well as cooling rods, capacitors, reflectors (rarely used components). I will not describe their crafts and purpose, everyone look at the wiki, it works the same way for us. Unless the capacitors burn out in just 5 minutes. In the scheme, in addition to obtaining energy, it is necessary to completely extinguish the outgoing heat from the rods. If there is more heat than cooling, then the reactor will explode (after a certain heating). If there is more cooling, then it will work until the rods are completely exhausted, in the long run forever.

I would divide schemes for a nuclear reactor into 2 types:
The most profitable in terms of efficiency per 1 uranium rod. Balance of uranium costs and energy output.
Example:

12 rods.
Efficiency 4.67
Yield 280 eu/t.
Accordingly, we obtain 23.3 EU/t or 9,220,000 energy per cycle (approximately) from 1 uranium rod. (23.3*20(cycles per second)*60(seconds per minute)*330(duration of rods in minutes))

The most profitable in terms of energy output per 1 reactor. We spend maximum uranium and get maximum energy.
Example:

28 rods.
Efficiency 3
Yield 420 eu/t.
Here we already have 15 EU/t or 5,940,000 energy per cycle per 1 rod.

Which option is closer to you, see for yourself, but do not forget that the second option will give a greater yield of plutonium due to more rods per reactor.

Advantages of a simple nuclear reactor:
+ Pretty good energy yield at the initial stage when using economical schemes even without additional reactor chambers.
Example:

+ Relative ease of creation / use in comparison with other types of reactors.
+ Allows you to use uranium almost at the very beginning. All you need is a centrifuge.
+ In the future, one of the most powerful sources of energy in industrial fashion and on our server in particular.

Minuses:
- Still, it requires some equipment in terms of industrial machines, as well as knowledge of their use.
- Produces relatively little power (small circuits) or just not much rational use uranium (one-piece reactor).

2. Nuclear reactor on MOX fuel.

Differences.
By and large, it is very similar to a uranium-fuelled reactor, but with some differences:

It uses, as the name implies, mox rods, which are assembled from 3 large pieces of plutonium (left after depletion) and 6 238 uranium (238 uranium will burn out into pieces of plutonium). 1 large piece of plutonium is 9 small ones, respectively, to make 1 mox rod, you must first burn 27 uranium rods in the reactor. Based on this, we can conclude that the creation of moxa is a time-consuming and lengthy undertaking. However, I can assure you that the energy output from such a reactor will be several times higher than from a uranium one.
Here's an example for you:

In the second exactly the same scheme, instead of uranium, there is mox and the reactor is heated almost to the stop. As a result, the output is almost fivefold (240 and 1150-1190).
However, there is also a negative point: moxa works not for 330, but for 165 minutes (2 hours 45 minutes).
Small comparison:
12 uranium rods.
Efficiency 4.
Yield 240 eu/t.
20 per cycle or 7,920,000 eu per cycle for 1 rod.

12 moxibustion rods.
Efficiency 4.
Yield 1180 eu/t.
98.3 per cycle or 19,463,000 eu per cycle for 1 rod. (duration shorter)

The basic principle of operation of the cooling of the uranium reactor is supercooling, of the mox reactor - the maximum stabilization of heating by cooling.
Accordingly, when heating 560, your cooling should be 560, well, or a little less (slight heating is allowed, but more on that below).
The greater the percentage of heating of the reactor core, the more energy the moxa rods give out without increasing heat generation.

Pros:
+ Uses practically unused fuel in the uranium reactor, namely 238 uranium.
+ When used correctly (circuit + heat) one of the best power sources in the game (relative to advanced solar panels from the Advanced Solar Panels mod). Only he is capable of issuing a charge of a thousand EU/tick for hours.

Minuses:
- Difficult to maintain (heating).
- Uses not the most economical (due to the need for automation to avoid heat loss) schemes.

2.5 External automatic cooling.

I will deviate a little from the reactors themselves and tell you about the cooling available for them that we have on the server. And specifically about Nuclear Control.
Red Logic is also required for the correct use of the nuclear control. It concerns only the contact sensor, it is not necessary for the remote sensor.
From this mod, as you might guess, we need contact and remote temperature sensors. For conventional uranium and mox reactors, contact is sufficient. For liquid (by design) a remote one is already needed.

We set the contact as in the image. The location of the wires (freestanding red alloy wire and red alloy wire) does not matter. The temperature (green display) is individually adjustable. Do not forget to move the button to the Pp position (initially it is Pp).

The contact sensor works like this:
Green panel - it receives temperature data, and it also means that it is within the normal range, it gives a redstone signal. Red - the reactor core has exceeded the temperature indicated in the sensor and it has stopped emitting a redstone signal.
Remote is almost the same. The main difference, as its name implies, is that it can provide data on the reactor from afar. He receives them using a set with a remote sensor (id 4495). He also eats energy by default (we have it disabled). It also occupies the entire block.

3. Liquid nuclear reactor.

So we come to the last type of reactors, namely liquid. It is called so because it is already relatively robustly close to real reactors (within the game, of course). The bottom line is this: the rods emit heat, the cooling components transfer this heat to the refrigerant, the refrigerant gives off this heat through liquid heat exchangers to the Stirling generators, the same convert thermal energy into electrical. (The option of using such a reactor is not the only one, but so far, subjectively, the simplest and most effective.)

Unlike the previous two types of reactors, the player is faced with the task of not maximizing the energy output from uranium, but balancing heating and the ability of the circuit to remove heat. The power output efficiency of a fluid reactor is based on the heat output, but is limited by the maximum cooling of the reactor. Accordingly, if you put 4 4x rods in a square in the circuit, you simply cannot cool them, in addition, the circuit will not be very optimal, and the effective heat removal will be at the level of 700-800 em / t (heat units) during operation. Is it necessary to say that a reactor with such a number of rods installed close to each other will operate 50 or maximum 60% of the time? For comparison, the optimal scheme found for a reactor of three 4 rods already produces 1120 units of heat for 5 and a half hours.

So far, the more or less simple (sometimes much more complicated and costly) technology for using such a reactor gives 50% heat output (stirlings). Remarkably, the heat output itself is multiplied by 2.

Let's move on to the construction of the reactor itself.
Even among multi-block structures, minecraft is subjectively very large and highly customizable, but nonetheless.
The reactor itself occupies an area of ​​5x5, plus possibly installed blocks of heat exchangers + stirlings. Accordingly, the final size is 5x7. Do not forget about installing the entire reactor in one chunk. After that, we prepare the site and lay out the reactor vessels 5x5.

Then we install a conventional reactor with 6 reactor chambers inside in the very center of the cavity.

Do not forget to use the remote sensor kit on the reactor, in the future we will not be able to get to it. We insert 12 reactor pumps + 1 red signal reactor conductor + 1 reactor hatch into the remaining empty slots of the shell. For example, it should turn out like this:

After that, it is necessary to look into the reactor hatch, this is our contact with the interior of the reactor. If everything is done correctly, the interface will change to look like this:

We will deal with the circuit itself later, but for now we will continue installing external components. Firstly, it is necessary to insert a liquid ejector into each pump. Neither now nor in the future, they do not require configuration and will work correctly in the "default" option. We check it better 2 times, do not disassemble it all later. Next, we install 1 liquid heat exchanger on 1 pump so that the red square looks from reactor. Then we clog heat exchangers with 10 heat pipes and 1 liquid ejector.

Let's check it again. Next, we put the stirling generators on the heat exchangers so that they look with their contact at the heat exchangers. You can turn them in the opposite direction from the side that the key touches by holding the shift key and clicking on the desired side. It should end up like this:

Then, in the reactor interface, we place about a dozen coolant capsules in the upper left slot. Then we connect all the stirlings with a cable, this is essentially our mechanism that removes energy from the reactor circuit. We put a remote sensor on the red signal conductor, and set it to the Pp position. The temperature does not play a role, you can leave 500, because in fact it should not warm up at all. It is not necessary to connect the cable to the sensor (on our server), it will work anyway.

It will produce 560 x 2 = 1120 U/t at the expense of 12 Stirlings, we output them in the form of 560 EU/t. Which is pretty good with 3 quad rods. The scheme is also convenient for automation, but more on that later.

Pros:
+ Gives out about 210% of energy relative to a standard uranium reactor with the same scheme.
+ Does not require constant monitoring (like moxa with the need to maintain heat).
+ Complements mox using 235 uranium. Allowing together to give out maximum energy from uranium fuel.

Minuses:
- Very expensive to build.
- Takes up a fair amount of space.
- Requires some technical knowledge.

General recommendations and observations for a liquid reactor:
- Do not use heat exchangers in reactor circuits. Due to the mechanics of a liquid reactor, they will accumulate the outgoing heat if overheating suddenly occurs, after which they will burn out. For the same reason, the cooling capsules and condensers in it are simply useless, because they take away all the heat.
- Each Stirling allows you to remove 100 units of heat, respectively, having 11.2 hundreds of heat in the circuit, we needed to install 12 Stirlings. If your system will give out, for example, 850 units, then only 9 of them will be enough. Keep in mind that the lack of stirlings will lead to heating of the system, because the excess heat will have nowhere to go!
- A rather outdated, but still usable program for calculating schemes for a uranium and liquid reactor, as well as partly mox, can be taken here

Keep in mind, if the energy from the reactor does not leave, then the Stirling buffer will overflow and overheating will begin (the heat will have nowhere to go)

P.S.
Thank you player MorfSD who helped in collecting information for the creation of the article and simply participated in the brainstorming and partly the reactor.

Article development continues...

Shalom) Today we will touch on the most interesting topics nuclear energy - my favorite ZYAR-ki) I warn you right away - it is very difficult to create such a reactor due to the huge need for lead. However, it's worth it​

Here is a circuit that generates 1152 HU/c. After the calculation, we get: 1152/100=11.52. Rounding up. There are 12 reactor pumps. This is the minimum number required to cool this circuit. Less impossible - melt everything to radioactive uranium.

Now let's start building the reactor itself .. ​

I want to note right away that the chunk rule also applies to liquid reactors. It should be built entirely in 1 chunk, along with all elements of the cooling system.
The body of the liquid reactor is a 5x5x5 cube with a nuclear reactor in the center.

Spoiler: Cross-sectional diagram of the construction of a nuclear reactor vessel.

Note: It is not necessary to use Reactor Blocks to build a reactor.
You can leave holes for special reactor blocks in advance.
​

Option 1. Stirling generators.

This type of heat-to-electricity conversion is the simplest, cheapest, safest and most inefficient. It allows you to get 50eu/t for every 100 hu/t.
It is a beginner, I recommend it for beginners. All the details and subtleties will be described in this guide.​

This is, roughly speaking, a complicated way of obtaining energy. It ranks in the middle for safety, simplicity and efficiency. Allows you to get 50% more energy compared to the above. For the "Prosharennyh" guys.
You can find out all about it by clicking on the link below:
​

Spoiler: The correct area for the location of special reactor blocks.

According to the calculations of the scheme indicated above, 12 reactor pumps are required. We install them in this order from 3 sides of the reactor.

Next, insert into each of them 1 "Liquid Ejector" Upgrade, set to "Auto Extract from the first matching side".
For each reactor pump, install 1 Liquid Heat Exchanger with the "Shift" key held down and insert 10 coils and 1 "Liquid Ejector" upgrade into it, set to "Automatic extraction from the first suitable side". The heat exchangers should be turned towards you with a hole, as in the screenshot. We perform this operation with each side of the reactor.

Finally, we install the "Stirling Generator" on each of the liquid heat exchangers with the "Shift" key pressed on the heat exchanger. Then we turn them with a key so that the hole looks towards the Liquid heat exchanger. Similarly, we are doing this adventure on each side.

Don't forget to pour coolant into the nuclear reactor. We place 20-32 capsules in a special slot (This is quite enough).
But we forgot to put the Reactor Hatch, Red Signal Reactor Conductor Quickly finish everything, wire the Stirling Generators and connect it to your common wire of generated energy.
The end result should be something like this.

I also got stuck with the steam generators, I couldn’t set it up, either one doesn’t heat up and the water leaves, or the reactor starts to go into overheating, and the refrigerant disappears somewhere a little.
As a result, he spat and stuck Stirling engines with them all hurting 500-odd energy per tick, only the refrigerant is still slowly evaporating.

you will build on the server all your life

Tell me how you calculate these reactors, with some kind of program or something? Not
I even found a description of heat dissipation in reactors and its components.

who will tell the server with this mod (this version)

update to ic2 2.2.652 there kinetic generators added (something like that I
understood in the list of changes)

Thank you. But for me, the schemes are too sophisticated. It’s easier to put greg or
use traditional schemes. Hatya is the most for hardcore players.

Dmitry Parfenov

During the operation of the reactor, steam is emitted from the steam generator all the time and from
fluid regulators gradually drains the water. As a result, the water ends up in
steam generator and it burns out. Everything seems to be assembled correctly. What can
be the reason?

for some reason, one of the steam generators constantly explodes, I double-checked everything for
several times, set correctly. already tired of restoring = C

IMHO: The industrial reactor is dead. Everywhere they put Hybrid solar and not
take a steam bath.
This is so - in a single to pervert.

Hello Hunter, great build, everything works properly. But here
the question hangs, why are there no heat sinks in the upper capacitors?

So many resources and labor for only 760 EU/t!

Vitalik Lutsenko

yeah that's cool can i have your skype

Alexander Mamontov (MrShift)

Damn it, how do you set up those damn steam generators? A little less/more
pressure or something, immediately releases steam (explodes) as it is at all
tune?

Ah, I'm not that advanced in this mod yet, but please tell me the name
buildings (if possible and how to do it) at 6:35 from glass and a block of iron

Dimka Chipmunk

little clarification. built the same for "more stable"
work had to pour in not 32 refrigerant flasks ... but 40. take in
Attention! and also on one side of the second (last in the chain)
the kinetic steam generator does not work / and therefore the condenser, and
distillant is consumed from this side ... what to do ... (although ... I
I realized after an hour of operation of the reactor that you can’t get enough of the distillant in the survival
.... distillate recovery is too weak... it is impossible
increase so as not to fill in so much distillant?

Dimka Chipmunk

and in general, tell us more about the segment from the Steam Generator to
capacitor. type course for teapot. because I don’t play mine for a long time yet
got into all the chips. ... for example, here is the amount of refrigerant for 16 flasks
pour why? although I read the comments below, but it did not reach me
...

Dimka Chipmunk

arrr... on the second day of using this scheme, I'm already tearing my hair out on my head
...
so unstable .. almost immediately the reactor chambers inside are burning ...
one of the steam generators consumes distillate 4 times faster ... just PPC
configure what it is so that it runs the cycle and does not explode
it turns out ... that's why people make hybrids and spit at nuclear scientists!
)

Antonpoganui Poganui

4.44 on the right is something similar to a tank where liquid is stored, what is it?

Bloody lair Bloody_MAn "a

Do you need to supply new refrigerant to the reactor? Or the refrigerant is looped there
and endless????

Timur Sharapov

To do this you have to be a crazy masochist!

It is not clear why complicate everything so much if the good old YAR, on MOX fuel
works safely and produces about 1300Eu / t in the dry residue?
True, it also needs to be warmed up, but that is a matter of technology.
But without all these steam generators and other body kit crap.

Mark Meshchanovich

In 2.2.676 does not plow

Mark Meshchanovich

put liquid ejectors in all pumps?

oleg soltanov

The diagram has a question
For a very long time everything was built and set up, looking for errors, but in the end
found
the bottom line is, 2 capacitors produce a small amount of distilled
water, as a result, all of it either evaporates or disappears. After a while in
there is no water left in the steam generator, which leads to overheating and an explosion
only the steam generator itself, but also the system as a whole (of course, this is not
allowed, but the steam generator disappeared, exploded) as a result, the whole system becomes
unstable and overheating.
What is odd is that other steam generators work very
good, but the one on the side of the Stirling generator and the upper one works poorly
on one of the dual systems. Is there a solution to this problem?
P.S. The bad job is that the steam filling strip is very
goes slowly, however, heat pipes are everywhere, and all parameters are met
and tested many times.

Steelion Hardwell

I did everything right and found errors in myself, corrected them in a couple of minutes
after heating it exploded. energy gave 256 Eu \ t

Channel by Anime and Games

There is another question, is it possible to use pipes instead of fluid regulators,
for example from the build?

Denis Nikanorov

Well I do not know. normal schema. started on the second try. screwed up myself
:) I forgot to install ejectors and heat sinks in two heat exchangers. in
in this mode, the reactor distilled the refrigerant into a superheated one, but it worked somewhere on
75-85% of full power. fixed everything, plows for the 5th cycle without problems :)

Ruban Gennady

Can you tell me where to find the "mathematics" of this process?

It seems that I build everything according to the instructions, I checked everything 10 times, but does not want to
hot refrigerant is shipped to the upper heat exchangers, maybe something is wrong with them
something special to do?

Alexander Shkondin

I am very grateful to the author. I really use my scheme and a little
converted reactor, basic knowledge received in this video helped. At
me the output is 850 eu/t average, 950 maximum, the output of the reactor is 1216Hu/s.
As fuel 1 quadruple rod and 4 simple ones I also use 4
ion reflector(cross rods, middle quad, corners
reflectors), after the first cycle in place of the reflectors I put the spent
rods. And in the place where the author has a stirling generator without a regulator
fluids, I have another steam turbine assembly.