Outside the box: Required auxiliary gear for FF DPFs

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  • August 22, 2010 at 12:00 pm #885
    zapkitty
    Participant

    At this time the classic dimensions of the “box” still seem to be holding… 1 x 4 x 9… errr… I mean 2m x 2m x 3m…

    As I understand it that volume should include the DPF in its vacuum containment, the alpha power takeoff gear, the caps and switches and other electronics directly involved in the DPF cycle, an “onion” of indeterminate thickness and any power circuitry that’s part of it, the heat rejection gear to transfer the heat of all of the above out of the box and a roughly spherical volume of water about a meter in radius surrounded by a shell of other materials a few centimeters thick.

    Outside the box there is presumed to be an external power feed to prime the caps and the cooling gear to handle the heat rejected from the box.

    So what have I missed that needs to be in the box?

    And what have I missed that that is required by an FF DPF but does not necessarily need to be in the box itself?

    August 22, 2010 at 1:28 pm #7793
    JimmyT
    Participant

    zapkitty wrote: At this time the classic dimensions of the “box” still seem to be holding… 1 x 4 x 9… errr… I mean 2m x 2m x 3m…

    As I understand it that volume should include the DPF in its vacuum containment, the alpha power takeoff gear, the caps and switches and other electronics directly involved in the DPF cycle, an “onion” of indeterminate thickness and any power circuitry that’s part of it, the heat rejection gear to transfer the heat of all of the above out of the box and a roughly spherical volume of water about a meter in radius surrounded by a shell of other materials a few centimeters thick.

    Outside the box there is presumed to be an external power feed to prime the caps and the cooling gear to handle the heat rejected from the box.

    So what have I missed that needs to be in the box?

    And what have I missed that that is required by an FF DPF but does not necessarily need to be in the box itself?

    Cooling tower, or heat exchanger with lake water discharge, or dry cooling unit (3 times as big as the wet one) or some combination of these, and associated pumps. Transformers to adjust electricity to needed voltage(s).
    None of these need to be or, in some cases can be, in the box.

    August 22, 2010 at 6:00 pm #7794
    zapkitty
    Participant

    JimmyT wrote:

    Cooling tower, or heat exchanger with lake water discharge, or dry cooling unit (3 times as big as the wet one) or some combination of these, and associated pumps. Transformers to adjust electricity to needed voltage(s).
    None of these need to be or, in some cases can be, in the box.

    The vacuum pumps for the containment could be inside or outside of the box.

    August 22, 2010 at 6:47 pm #7796
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    Also the fueling and safety systems.

    August 23, 2010 at 10:24 pm #7816
    Rezwan
    Participant

    Can anyone draw up a schematic design of this? It’s easier to keep track with pictures.

    August 23, 2010 at 10:28 pm #7817
    Tulse
    Participant

    So could we get away with, what, two shipping containers for a fully self-contained DPF installation? Or would the cooling and transformers require more space than that?

    August 24, 2010 at 3:30 am #7825
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    Tulse wrote: So could we get away with, what, two shipping containers for a fully self-contained DPF installation? Or would the cooling and transformers require more space than that?

    Some cherry-picked applications could have very small apparent cooling and or transformer requirements. For instance, a FF used to heat a building could appear to have no cooling system beyond some tubing and pumps that are required to begin with. This is elegant design and engineering.

    Designing the output waveform conditioning circuits for a nearby regional or national transmission line could shrink the apparent size of the output transformers.

    I’m beginning to wonder about a small freighter or large trawler integrating a FF or few with a mobile desalination plant. Throw in some emergency comms and disaster relief agencies might become prospects.

    August 24, 2010 at 10:23 am #7831
    zapkitty
    Participant

    Aeronaut wrote:

    So could we get away with, what, two shipping containers for a fully self-contained DPF installation? Or would the cooling and transformers require more space than that?

    Some cherry-picked applications could have very small apparent cooling and or transformer requirements…

    But if you don’t have cogeneration or trigeneration as an option (or quantum dots 🙂 )then you’ll have to deal with 5 megawatts of waste heat for the classic FF DPF… which means that one shipping container would actually be a 1400 RT cooling tower in disquise that you’d stand on end in a nearby pond…

    … had to come down from orbit to look that up :)… while the vacuum of space produces serious challenges in cooling, I think there’d be some difficulties with a radiator 11 meters on a side jutting out of your planetside power facility while running at 400 degrees C…

    and a wtf sig for today…
    “Sub-megawatt boxes for space!”

    … we return now to earthbound considerations… anyone have a clue yet as to what the raw output voltages might look like?

    … still assuming that the net power comes from the onion…

    August 24, 2010 at 2:29 pm #7834
    vansig
    Participant

    zapkitty wrote:
    anyone have a clue yet as to what the raw output voltages might look like?

    … still assuming that the net power comes from the onion…

    both onion and ion exit beam could yield raw voltages from 50 kV to 2 MV depending on actual circuit design

    August 24, 2010 at 4:28 pm #7835
    Henning
    Participant

    Rezwan wrote: Can anyone draw up a schematic design of this? It’s easier to keep track with pictures.

    Maybe we should start a section “Design” in the focusfusion.org-Wiki. Those things may be easier to talk about, when everyone can improve a design iteratively instead of working serially in a forum.

    An example of open-source design is the RepRap project: http://www.reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page

    And when it works, maybe also the Open Source Car project: http://www.theoscarproject.org/

    By the way: The focusfusion.org-Wiki isn’t prominently linked, just from a single article, which I am too lazy to hunt down now. It should be in the headline, next to the forum-link.

    August 24, 2010 at 8:03 pm #7836
    zapkitty
    Participant

    some good news… I think… if I got the numbers right, that is… 🙂

    One thing about the cooling needs of the box is that part of the notional 5MWe would be needed to power the gear that got rid of the unwanted 5MWt… indeed if you wanted to go for all-electric air cooling without big radiator and heat sink equivalents such as cooling towers and lakes you’d unsurprisingly have to use almost all of your MWe to get rid of the MWt…

    … but the current advanced micron-gap thermal photovoltaics (quantum dots) which are supposed to operate at 15% efficiency (with much better to come) could draw 750 kWe from that waste heat… enough to power the cooling systems for the rest of the setup and reduce the cooling load to ~1200 tons…

    … and that brings up the possibility in the future of eschewing the pond and just having your second shipping container telescope upwards layer-cake style into an electric air-cooled tower that only needs a few tons of water onboard, enough to provide the heat sink and working fluid for the tower… have to get actual industrial cooling people to chime in on the feasibility of this but the concept is cool… 😉

    August 24, 2010 at 9:30 pm #7838
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    vansig wrote:

    anyone have a clue yet as to what the raw output voltages might look like?

    … still assuming that the net power comes from the onion…

    both onion and ion exit beam could yield raw voltages from 50 kV to 2 MV depending on actual circuit design

    Outstanding! Several standard US transmission voltages are in that range!

    August 25, 2010 at 1:54 pm #7877
    zapkitty
    Participant

    Aeronaut wrote:

    both onion and ion exit beam could yield raw voltages from 50 kV to 2 MV depending on actual circuit design

    Outstanding! Several standard US transmission voltages are in that range!

    Okay, that would mean that cooling and transformers can be off-the-shelf parts. (The quantum dots being an upgrade possibility.)

    Cooling should probably budget one shipping container and an onsite water supply for now. Could get better quickly. (or could already be better and I’m just unaware of the fact… 🙂 )

    And depending on exactly what the box outputs in terms of power and the desired specifications at the work site the transformers could range in size from 1/4 to 1 container. (lot of leeway in there but there’s a lot of options…)

    A dedicated engineering solution might even get
    the whole shebang into two containers including the DPF but that’s not off-the-shelf…

    And the work site may already have cogeneration and/or HV transformer capabilities on hand… in which case there might need to be only one container with a DPF and some spare ducting and cabling stuffed in with the DPF gear.

    But we want to find out what is required for a DPF to operate on its own so let’s assume that we’re planning for either an initial power situation with little to no infrastructure in place or an emergency situation with damaged or unknown infrastructure… so let’s examine what I hope is a representative sample of the competition…

    Taurus 60 5MW Industrial Power Generator, the mobile version.

    Burns fuel at 11 MWt to generate 5200 kWe

    http://www.generatorsurplus.com/used_inventory_page4.html

    5200KW Solar Taurus

    5200 kW Solar Taurus T-60 Portable Gas Turbine Power Modules. Capable of paralleling with utility grid or island mode (isolated bus) operation, 13,200 Volts, Sets up in 24 hours, 230 psi gas pressure minimum. Packages built in 2001. Solar Maintained since new. Capable of supporting both Natural Gas and Dual Fuel.

    … and some stats…

    http://www.utilitywarehouse.com/info2/solarTaurust-60.htm

    Performance Data ISO*, XQ5200 Mobile Power Unit
    *(english units omitted by zapkitty)

    Power Output 5,200 kWe
    Heat Rate 11,900 kJ/Kwe-hr
    Fuel Flow (LHV) 59.8 mmBTU/hr
    Emissions,
    NOX 25 PPM vd 2.65 kG/Hr
    CO 50 PPM vd 3.22 kG/Hr
    Gen. Voltage 12.47 or 13.8 kV
    Gen. Frequency 60 Hz

    Length 14.6 meters
    Width 6.4 meters
    Height 8.1 meters

    (near as I can make out it’s on two trailers – zapkitty)

    Installed Weights
    Turbine Section 54 M tons
    PCR Trailer 25 M tons

    Natural Gas Fueled
    Gas Pres. 172 KPAG
    Max. Gas Demand 39.6 M3/Min
    Foundation
    Gravel Compacted to 120 kPA
    Fuel Quality
    Clean Dry Fuel Per Solar Spec ES 9-98

    Hmmmmmmm… off the bat a DPF appears to be at least competitive… while the gas turbine easily sheds most of its heat by expelling its exhaust gases it must burn fuel and pollute to do so. Also it uses up volume for noise control.

    I wonder how a DPF’s vacuum pumps would do in a comparison of noise and moving parts maintenance as well…

    The T-60 produces the power to industrial specifications so no extra transformers needed?

    Would attempting to meet or exceed the T-60 specs be an appropriate target for a first cut at a DPF installation?

    August 25, 2010 at 4:21 pm #7884
    Aeronaut
    Participant

    And from their rentals section springs a picture of at least one container ready to roll: http://www.generatorsurplus.com/generator_rentals.html

    August 25, 2010 at 5:10 pm #7885
    zapkitty
    Participant

    Aeronaut wrote: And from their rentals section springs a picture of at least one container ready to roll: http://www.generatorsurplus.com/generator_rentals.html

    … that’s a 2MWe generator in a custom container-sized trailer…

    … to get the 5MWe of a default DPF box you’d need 2.5 such containers… which is the upper boundary of what I figure a DPF deployment might need…

    Now if you want to limit the DPF to 2MWe available output then I’d bet it could be done in a single custom container… albeit, perhaps, a somewhat fancy one when deployed…

    … and yes it’s the same principle as the sub-megawatt boxes for space… why do you ask? 🙂

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