Metal Volcano

Metal Volcano
A highly pressurized volcano that periodically erupts with Molten Metals.
Dimensions	3×3 tiles
Category	Geysers
Decor	+10 (Radius: 2 tiles)
Effects	Refined Metal: Average 300 g/s or Niobium: Average 1.2 kg/s
Deconstructible	No

Metal Volcanoes are a special type of geyser and a renewable, infinite source of Refined Metals. In the Base Game they are always buried, but in the Spaced Out! DLC they can sometimes spawn uncovered when settling a new Planetoid.

Like a typical geyser, they alternate between an active state in which they produce their material and an inactive "dormant" state where they do nothing. During the eruption phase, output of liquid metal can be blocked by over-pressurization. The maximum pressure it will output at is 150 kg in a Gas, such as Steam, or when its first two layers are fully submerged in a Liquid, such as its own output. The tile of interest from which the emission comes out from is the exact center tile of the 3 by 3 volcano, which, on the 4 tile neutronium base is shifted to the left.

The Base Game has volcanoes for Gold , Copper and Iron , while the Spaced Out! DLC introduces volcanoes for Tungsten , Aluminum , Niobium , and the Spaced Out! exclusive element Cobalt . In Spaced Out!, Niobium Volcanoes are the only renewable source of Niobium.

Name	Produced Element	Temp
Copper Volcano	Molten Copper	2226.85 °C	2500 K	4040.33 °F
Iron Volcano	Molten Iron	2526.85 °C	2800 K	4580.33 °F
Gold Volcano	Molten Gold	2626.85 °C	2900 K	4760.33 °F
Aluminum Volcano	Molten Aluminum	1726.85 °C	2000 K	3140.33 °F
Tungsten Volcano	Molten Tungsten	3726.85 °C	4000 K	6740.33 °F
Niobium Volcano	Molten Niobium	3226.85 °C	3500 K	5840.33 °F
Cobalt Volcano	Molten Cobalt	2226.85 °C	2500 K	4040.33 °F

Metal Volcano Taming

Metal Volcanoes eject their metals in molten form at appropriately hot temperatures. Although all Metal Volcanoes except Niobium follow the same rules for their eruption periods and ejection rates, the metals have different ejection temperatures, freezing points, and specific heat capacities, therefore it is unlikely to have a one-size fits all solution which is not wasteful for most volcanoes.

Any geyser, vent, or, in this case, volcano, cycles through 3 phases. The dormant phase, and the active phase which contains the ejection phase, and the idle phase. And it's important to view it as such, since merely calculating the volcano's average output over its lifetime can still lead to equipment overheating.

• During the Ejection Phase, Metal and Heat is rapidly introduced into the environment, therefore one needs a Buffer to catch the Heat in.
• During the Idle Phase, all the produced heat from the Ejection Phase, stored in the Buffer must be moved away to be ready for the next ejection.
• And during the Dormant Phase, nothing happens, but it can not be relied upon as a large period of time to let the entirety of the setup cool down, that's what the Idle Phase should be for.

By far the best buffer and heat deletion combination is Water (or rather, Steam ) and the Steam Turbine. In perfect conditions, a Self-Cooled Steam Turbine can delete 292.53kDTU per second.

To calculate how big of a water buffer must be in place, it is handy to know that the ejected metal exchanges its temperature with the environment much more readily as a Liquid than as debris.
To get the Ratio of Ejection amount to buffer size, you first calculate the total amount of heat to be removed from the ejected metal until it solidifies, which is the difference of its Output and Freezing temperature multiplied by its SHC. Then, you divide that number by the amount of heat your buffer medium (water) can take before its temperature leaves the permissible range. In other words, you calculate the difference between the high and the low end of your permissible range and multiply it with the SHC of you buffer medium (which is 4.179 for water). The permissible range for a self-cooled Steam Turbine is 138°C - 125°C. For a Steam Turbine cooled by Aquatuners it is 275°C-125°C because steel equipment will break above that temperature. The latter version cuts down the amount of water needed by a factor of 10.

$R=\frac{SH{C}_{metal}\cdot (T_{output}-T_{freezing})}{SH{C}_{water}\cdot (138-125)}$

The Ejection amount can be simply multiplied with this ratio (different for every metal) to get the size of the water buffer needed.
Examples:

• A Gold Volcano that spews 11kg/s for 27 seconds, with gold's ratio of 3.71, needs about 1150kg of Water.
• An Iron Volcano that spews 17kg/s for 22 seconds, with iron's ratio of 8.2, needs about 3100kg of Water.
• An Aluminum Volcano that spews 8.2kg/s for 32 seconds, with aluminum's ratio of 17.87, needs about 4700kg of Water.

To calculate how many Self-Cooled Steam Turbines are required, first calculate the output that one turbine can take care of by dividing the amount of cooling the Turbine can do (292,53kDTU) by the amount of Heat produced by one gram of metal. Then take the average output over an activity period (not average over lifetime) and round up to the next whole number of turbines:

$\eta =\frac{292530}{SH{C}_{metal}\cdot Tem{p}_{metal}}$ ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{active}=\frac{{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{erupting}*t_{erupting}}{t_{period}}$ $n_{Turbines}=\lceil \frac{{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{active}}{\eta }\rceil$

Note that since all metal volcanoes (except Niobium) produce between 200 and 400 kg/cycle, the bounds on Δ_active will always be between 333.33 and 666.67 g/s; Niobium volcanoes instead produce 800-1600 kg/cycle, so Δ_active will be between 1333.33-2666.67 g/s. Also note that Temp_metal must be in Kelvin, not in °C (e.g. iron emits at 2526.85 °C = 2800 K, so η = 292530 / (0.449 * 2800) = about 232).

Examples:

• A Gold Volcano that spews 11kg/s for 27 seconds every 570 seconds, or 521g/s. One Turbine is needed since it can handle up to 781 g/s:

$\eta =\frac{292530}{0.129\cdot 2900}\approx 781.96$ ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{active}=\frac{11000*27}{570}\approx 521.05$ $n_{Turbines}\approx \lceil \frac{521.05}{781.96}\rceil =1$

• An Iron Volcano that spews 17kg/s for 22 seconds every 780 seconds, or 479.5g/s. Three Turbines are needed since one can handle up to 232 g/s, two can handle 465 g/s (not quite enough!), and three can handle 698 g/s:

$\eta =\frac{292530}{0.449\cdot 2800}\approx 232.68$ ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{active}=\frac{17000*22}{780}\approx 479.49$ $n_{Turbines}\approx \lceil \frac{479.49}{232.68}\rceil =3$

• An Aluminum Volcano that spews 8.2kg/s for 32 seconds every 450 seconds, or 583.1g/s. Four Turbines are needed since one can handle up to 160 g/s, so three would be 482g/s and four therefore 642g/s:

$\eta =\frac{292530}{0.91\cdot 2000}\approx 160.73$ ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{active}=\frac{8200*32}{450}\approx 583.11$ $n_{Turbines}\approx \lceil \frac{583.11}{160.73}\rceil =4$

Niobium volcanoes are a unique exception to the eruption behavior exhibited by other metal volcanoes; their eruption patterns resemble that of regular, magma-producing volcanoes- long intervals between eruptions, but emitting massive quantities of very hot, very conductive Liquid Niobium during eruptions- potentially several hundred kilograms per second. Further complicating things, Liquid Niobium will form a tile of solid Niobium when cooled at a mere 50kg of mass, well below the volume emitted per second while erupting. This will result in the volcano quickly entombing itself in tiles of Niobium if conventional methods are used to tame it, providing a unique challenge and necessitating an alternative strategy.

Metal	Output Temperature	Freezing Temperature	Temperature Range		SHC	Heat in DTU/g		Ratio		Amount of Metal Handled (g/s)
			to solid	to 125°C		to solid	to 125°C	exact	rounded	by 1 Turbine	by 2	by 3	by 4
Gold	2626.85	1063.85	1563	~2500	0.129	201.627	322.739	3.71	4	781
Tungsten	3726.85	3421.85	305	~3600	0.134	40.870	482.648	0.75	2	545	1091
Niobium	2726.85	2476.85	250	~2600	0.265	66.250	689.490	1.22	2	315	630	946	1261
Copper	2226.85	1083.85	1143	~2100	0.386	441.198	811.314	8.12	10	303	606	909
Iron	2526.85	1534.85	992	~2400	0.449	445.408	1078.431	8.20	10	232	465	698
Cobalt	2626.85	1494.9	1131.95	~2500	0.420	475.419	1050.777	8.75	10	278	557	835
Aluminum	1726.85	660.30	1066.55	~1600	0.910	970.561	1457.684	17.87	20	160	321	482	642

These calculations are for self-cooled steam turbines only. The color of the cells in the last four columns indicate the viability of that many self-cooled turbines for a volcano of that type, with red indicating entirely insufficient for all sizes, orange indicating sufficient for some but not all volcanoes, and green indicating sufficient to handle even the highest-output volcanoes. For turbines being cooled by Thermo Aquatuners instead (located in the same area as the volcano) then the heat deletion per Turbine can be raised up to 1538.05 kDTU/s (at 300°C) at which point a single Turbine is enough to handle any Metal Volcano.