How does refueling work?

[shadowcat20]

Ok, after all the fun I have had on the Jump drive thread, here is this weeks topic.

What are your ideas on refueling?

First of all according to High guard Jump tanks take LHyd. In AHL the ship fueling decks also state that the ship takes LHyd and shows the chilling units right on the plans.

So we are to assume that a ship refueling will either be skimming off LHyd, Breaking down water for it, or cracking ice to break down.

Here are some numbers I have pulled so far.

AHL Shuttles take 3 hours to fill 350 tons skimming for a 400 ton shuttle. From launch to returning to the ship. This means an AHL take 3 days to refuel using it’s 4 400 ton fueling shuttles.

Landing and refueling from a planets water takes twice as long. So the ship takes 7 days to refuel.

Gathering fuel from an ice cap takes 9 to 10 hours. So the ship takes about 10 Days.

H2O has 2 Hydrogen atoms at a weight of 1 each for 1 Oxygen atom at a weight of 16

Using these numbers it would seem it takes 1 hour to skim 100 tons of fuel through fuel scoops. 1.5 to 2 hours per 100 tons for water refueling and 3 to 3.5 hours per 100 tons for Ice.

This is my take on the process. keep in mind this is just my opinion.

Water in seas should be restricted on Upp 0-3 worlds. It uses too much water to refuel ships. H2O has 2 Hydrogen atoms at a weight of 1 each for 1 Oxygen atom at a weight of 16. So 20 tons of water would get you about 2 tons of Hydrogen, 16 tons of oxygen, and maybe as much as 2 tons of impurities depending on the content in the water if my rough math is right. At roughly 8 pounds per gallon that is 250 gallons a ton or 5000 gallons for your 20 tons of water. Refueling a large number of ships on the surface would reduce the water on the planet fast. With the hydrogen being taken off planet to be used for jumps the world would soon dry up.

Water contamination should affect time to breakdown water and also affect purification times. Possible contaminants would include, salt, organic matter, pollution, silt, muck, bacteria, and garbage. Impurities would have to be screened out and dumped. The water would have to be distilled to remove the smaller particles. Then the Hydrogen and Oxygen would have to be separated. The Hydrogen then would have to be chilled and pumped into the ship fuel tanks. Other gases may be freed during the process possibly causing major problems also. If you were to pump in water from a swamp the local methane would mix with oxygen from the breakdown process making the whole operation a large bomb waiting for a spark to set it off. Other more poisonous gases may be released depending on what was in the water risking the crew members.
Just diving into a body of water and opening the tanks would be a major mistake greatly increasing the chances of miss jumps. Also for every 2 tons of Hydrogen generated you would free 16 tons of Oxygen causing a major disturbance on the surface as the gases rose. Your skimmer filters would also be clogged up from the other items floating around in the water. A ship would need to land, put hoses into the body of water, and pump it through the refining station.

For cracking ice you have to break up the ice, melt it, remove all the rock and other large debris, filter out the smaller stuff, then finish the process like it was normal water. Once you get the process going it may be possible to use steam from the process to melt more ices speeding up the process a bit. But this would only work on worlds with an atmosphere. Cracking Ice from a comet or dead world would be much slower and tougher.

Wha t am I missing as normal and what are your guys takes on this vital process?

Keep in mind I am just using LBB CT on this one.

 

[far-trader]

...Here are some numbers I have pulled so far.

AHL Shuttles take 3 hours to fill 350 tons skimming for a 400 ton shuttle.

Flaw number one, and this early in the presumptions kind of means round-filing the rest of your work. Sorry. The AHL shuttles can't be built as described and carry 350tons of fuel. About 200tons iirc, but that's a very iffy recall and my notes are who knows where...

 

[Dragoner]

Shuttles imo, would for skimming have a purification plants to bring in purified fuel which could be done in transit from the GG.

For water, or hydrographic refueling, I would think an osmotic filter over the intake on a pipe, then to electrolysis equipment which would break down the water to hydrogen, then to refrigerated tanks. O2 might be tanked as well, or added to a more stable oxide compound to be used later.

 

[shadowcat20]

I just did a quick fig for a 400 to TL 14 shuttle. It should be able to hold at least 340 tons.

Bridge 20 t
Comp 1 Ton
Man 2 Drive 20 tons
Power 2 8 tons
Fuel 8 tons
Purifcation 20tons (Used number for 1000 tons fuel)
The fuel shuttles had no weapons or defense.

This was a large small craft so staterooms were not needed.

Using full sized purif plants from High Guard it had 327 tons left. Using smaller purif plants would put it well in the 340 range for tankage. It was not a starship so did not need Jump, or Staterooms.

EDIT:As for the numbers on time these are a direct quote from LBB5 Lightnint class cruisers. Their numbers, not mine.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Refuelling is simple:

• Fly your AHL class up to the next space fuel station. Choose a brand-name one since the free once sell second-rate hydrogen from the bottom of the crackers!
• Park right so your fueling port is close to the outlet marked "Premium Grade Hydrogen". After all you are fueling a J5 warship not some piddly J2 freighter. So get the 102Octane stuff
• Switch off radios etc, ground yourself, open refueling port
• Take refueling probe and enter in port. Pull handle back until automatic kicks in
• Fill her up until automtic stops the flow. Don't overfill
• Hang pack probe to trigger cost computation, close fueling port
• Flit over to the counter and pay. Good stations take cash, Imperial Express, Bank of Sylea and Imperial Warrents.

 

[Lycanorukke]

Keep in mind I am just using LBB CT on this one.

I had a poke through the MT Arrival Vengance out of interest, and the numbers for shuttles are roughly the same, with a few minor differences. A shuttle holds 4500kl (333 tons) and takes about 3 days using all 4, but they also have ten passanger seats. The big difference though is that the shuttles have no fuel purifier, instead letting the AHL do the work while it's sitting around waiting for the tankers to fill it up.

The other catch is that there is more than one way to purify things besides electrolysis and filters.

After filtering out the 'big stuff' -simply send the material near the fusion core turning it into plasma, use magnetic fields to sort out what free atoms you want, dump the rest and then let the plasma cool and the molecules recondense. By this method it doesn't matter what you throw in the fuel tank - if it can be turned into plasma (organics included) you can grab whatever you need - Hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen or complex molecules if you want to mix things.

 

[far-trader]

I just did a quick fig for a 400 to TL 14 shuttle. It should be able to hold at least 340 tons.

I could be misremembering

Carry on...

 

[HG_B]

So 20 tons of water would get you about 2 tons of Hydrogen,

Nope, remember your chem classes. The density of H2O is MUCH higher than liquid H2. Volume: 1 ton of H2O nets you ~1.6 tons of L-Hyd.
Liquid hydrogen has a density of 0.07 grams per cc, water has a density of 1.0 g/cc.

 

[shadowcat20]

Dat's why I want youse guys to crunch dem numbers......

And as for the Purif plant on the shuttle that was my bad....Add 20 tons as it should not be there.


Ok, I am assuming that is volume tons rather than weight tons. Or you would be creating matter out of no where to multiply by 1.6 on weight.

So How much Volume tonnage of Oxy would you get out of that ton of H20?

It still adds up to a cloud of bubbles rising to the surface if a ship was on the bottom of a lake.

 

[HG_B]

Ok, I am assuming that is volume tons rather than weight tons.

I'm quoting volume (cubic centimeters). The H2 molocules are MUCH closer together in H2O than they are in L-H2. So, when you separate the H from the O in H2O you get 1.6X the volume of L-H2. It stores more densely as H2O. Hence, storing H2O in the tanks for PP fuel instead of L-Hyd... Or, for a 2nd jump.

 

[shadowcat20]

It may store better, but could it be broken down quick enough to feed the fire on another jump? Or would you have to break it down in H2 form, fill the jump tank, then jump?

 

[HG_B]

It may store better, but could it be broken down quick enough to feed the fire on another jump? Or would you have to break it down in H2 form, fill the jump tank, then jump?

You refine it during your 1st jump. Look up rates that fuel processors refine fuel in the various trav versions. It is stated in the rules already under ocean refueling. You fill the tanks with H2O and refine later.

 

[shadowcat20]

Must be one of many sources I do not have.

 

[HG_B]

Must be one of many sources I do not have.

It's in MT Ref Guide, MGT Main Rule book, CT High Guard, GURPS Trav, etc. It's hard to run a Trav game and NOT have at least one of the books where it is covered.

 

[aramis]

Dat's why I want youse guys to crunch dem numbers......

And as for the Purif plant on the shuttle that was my bad....Add 20 tons as it should not be there.


Ok, I am assuming that is volume tons rather than weight tons. Or you would be creating matter out of no where to multiply by 1.6 on weight.

So How much Volume tonnage of Oxy would you get out of that ton of H20?

It still adds up to a cloud of bubbles rising to the surface if a ship was on the bottom of a lake.

One ton-mass of H20 is 1 kL. it's about 111.111kg of H2 and 888.889kg O2.
one ton-displacement of H2O is 14kL and 14 tons mass. It's 1.556 Mg H2 and 12.444 Mg (tons mass).
one ton-displacement of H2 is 14kL and 1 Mg. Density 0.07T/kL
one ton-displacement of liquid O2 cryogenic is 14kL and 15.9 Mg. Density 1.141 or so.

So, your 1Td H20 when cracked out is 1.556 Td H2 and 10.907 kL O2, or 0.779 Td of Cryogenic O2.

As a gas at STP, however, that O2 is 9507.216 kL. Which is enough to completely replace the O2 in 45380.506 kL (3241.465 Td) of std atmosphere at STP. At 260 kg/man-year, that's 47.863 man-years of O2 per ton of water. Or 622 man-months using the std imperial calendar (4 weeks per month, 13 months per year, which matches the 4 week LS cycle).

Which means the cryogenic O2 component in the LS recharge is 20kg per person per month-imperial, and about 17L...

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/oxygen-d_1422.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere#Earth
http://100777.com/node/1278

 

[shadowcat20]

Ummm...OK...Got most of that. It does mean however that a ship running out of air could be no issue if there is fuel stored as water.

 

[HG_B]

Ummm...OK...Got most of that. It does mean however that a ship running out of air could be no issue if there is fuel stored as water.

Yes, that would be correct.

IMTU, O2 is broken out of the CO2 so, barring accident, battle damage or power loss, it is pretty much impossible to run out of air anyway.

 

[McPerth]

Refuelling is simple:

• Fly your AHL class up to the next space fuel station. Choose a brand-name one since the free once sell second-rate hydrogen from the bottom of the crackers!
• Park right so your fueling port is close to the outlet marked "Premium Grade Hydrogen". After all you are fueling a J5 warship not some piddly J2 freighter. So get the 102Octane stuff
• Switch off radios etc, ground yourself, open refueling port
• Take refueling probe and enter in port. Pull handle back until automatic kicks in
• Fill her up until automtic stops the flow. Don't overfill
• Hang pack probe to trigger cost computation, close fueling port
• Flit over to the counter and pay. Good stations take cash, Imperial Express, Bank of Sylea and Imperial Warrents.

I heard about ths refueling plan and tried it with my Azhanti on Gesentown (Spinward Marches 0303) while raiding the Zho's worlds in the zone, back on the FFW. I still don't know what went wrong (I'm sure my Iridium Imperial Express card was OK).

BTW, whould someone be so kind as to tell me how to get out this zho prision planet?


Now getting serious again:

Ok, after all the fun I have had on the Jump drive thread, here is this weeks topic.

What are your ideas on refueling?

First of all according to High guard Jump tanks take LHyd. In AHL the ship fueling decks also state that the ship takes LHyd and shows the chilling units right on the plans.

So we are to assume that a ship refueling will either be skimming off LHyd, Breaking down water for it, or cracking ice to break down.

Here are some numbers I have pulled so far.

AHL Shuttles take 3 hours to fill 350 tons skimming for a 400 ton shuttle. From launch to returning to the ship. This means an AHL take 3 days to refuel using it’s 4 400 ton fueling shuttles.

Landing and refueling from a planets water takes twice as long. So the ship takes 7 days to refuel.

Gathering fuel from an ice cap takes 9 to 10 hours. So the ship takes about 10 Days.

H2O has 2 Hydrogen atoms at a weight of 1 each for 1 Oxygen atom at a weight of 16

Using these numbers it would seem it takes 1 hour to skim 100 tons of fuel through fuel scoops. 1.5 to 2 hours per 100 tons for water refueling and 3 to 3.5 hours per 100 tons for Ice.

This is my take on the process. keep in mind this is just my opinion.

Water in seas should be restricted on Upp 0-3 worlds. It uses too much water to refuel ships. H2O has 2 Hydrogen atoms at a weight of 1 each for 1 Oxygen atom at a weight of 16. So 20 tons of water would get you about 2 tons of Hydrogen, 16 tons of oxygen, and maybe as much as 2 tons of impurities depending on the content in the water if my rough math is right. At roughly 8 pounds per gallon that is 250 gallons a ton or 5000 gallons for your 20 tons of water. Refueling a large number of ships on the surface would reduce the water on the planet fast. With the hydrogen being taken off planet to be used for jumps the world would soon dry up.

Water contamination should affect time to breakdown water and also affect purification times. Possible contaminants would include, salt, organic matter, pollution, silt, muck, bacteria, and garbage. Impurities would have to be screened out and dumped. The water would have to be distilled to remove the smaller particles. Then the Hydrogen and Oxygen would have to be separated. The Hydrogen then would have to be chilled and pumped into the ship fuel tanks. Other gases may be freed during the process possibly causing major problems also. If you were to pump in water from a swamp the local methane would mix with oxygen from the breakdown process making the whole operation a large bomb waiting for a spark to set it off. Other more poisonous gases may be released depending on what was in the water risking the crew members.
Just diving into a body of water and opening the tanks would be a major mistake greatly increasing the chances of miss jumps. Also for every 2 tons of Hydrogen generated you would free 16 tons of Oxygen causing a major disturbance on the surface as the gases rose. Your skimmer filters would also be clogged up from the other items floating around in the water. A ship would need to land, put hoses into the body of water, and pump it through the refining station.

For cracking ice you have to break up the ice, melt it, remove all the rock and other large debris, filter out the smaller stuff, then finish the process like it was normal water. Once you get the process going it may be possible to use steam from the process to melt more ices speeding up the process a bit. But this would only work on worlds with an atmosphere. Cracking Ice from a comet or dead world would be much slower and tougher.

Wha t am I missing as normal and what are your guys takes on this vital process?

Keep in mind I am just using LBB CT on this one.

I think this is also an interesting question.

One thing we must also take into account is that not only too many ships whould dry up a dry planet, but also whould release too much oxigen to any breathable atmosphere, perhaps even tainting it with high oxigen taint. I'd guess Vland's UPP (having no GG) should by now be 970A9A-F N Instead of 957A9A-F N after so many years of so many ships refuelling.

Skimming from GG whould be teorethically easier, you open your scoops, filter the gases (or purify them with any available methods) and then liquify them (I'd say its done more by very high perure than freezing it).

Even so, GG May also be depleted (even if that whould take quite more time). Think about any planet near Vlad with only one GG. nearly 4000 years of many daily refuelling whould end anything...

If you allow me to refear to the jump drives thread (forgive me for that), if most of the hydrogen is released as coolant, as discussed quite a lot there, this H2 whould return to the body from what was taken for gravity effect (even if release 100 diameters from that space body, gravity whould attract it anyway), replenishing GG and merging with the excess oxigen in standard atmospheres.

Shuttles imo, would for skimming have a purification plants to bring in purified fuel which could be done in transit from the GG.

For water, or hydrographic refueling, I would think an osmotic filter over the intake on a pipe, then to electrolysis equipment which would break down the water to hydrogen, then to refrigerated tanks. O2 might be tanked as well, or added to a more stable oxide compound to be used later.

This time I agree with you about the reverse osmotic filter, as destilled water could not be used for electrolysis, not being conductive. It must have some salts disolved to be used.

 

[HG_B]

One thing we must also take into account is that not only too many ships whould dry up a dry planet,

There's about 1,260,000,000,000,000,000,000 liters (93,333,333,333,333,333 Dtons) of water on Earth. Wonder how many ships would have to refuel to make any difference?

 

[shadowcat20]

The question might be how much pure water do you have to take out of the ocean to start playing with the eco system? You would start to increase the salt content after a while and possably lower the surface area.

A lot of unknowns I think.