Metal Volcano

This article has not been revised for the current version (***U50-587362***). It was last updated for *U46-552078*. It may contain inaccuracies.
This article has not been revised for the current version (***U50-587362***). It was last updated for *U46-552078*. It may contain inaccuracies.

## Metal Volcano

A highly pressurized volcano that periodically erupts with Molten Metals.

### 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 and Aluminum and, since the Space Game was changed, Niobium. In Spaced Out!, Niobium Volcanoes are the only renewable source of Niobium.

## Metal Volcano Taming

Metal Volcanoes eject their metals in molten form at appropriately hot temperatures. Although **all Metal Volcanoes, with the exception of 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.

The by far best Buffer, and heat deletion combination is the 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.

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{\displaystyle R=\frac{c\_{metal} \cdot (T\_{output}-T\_{freezing})}{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.

**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 900 g/s.
* An Iron Volcano that spews 17kg/s for 22 seconds every 780 seconds, or 479.5g/s. Two Turbines are needed since one can handle up to 250 g/s, and two therefore 500g/s.
* An Aluminum Volcano that spews 8.2kg/s for 32 seconds every 450 seconds, or 583.1g/s. Three Turbines are needed since one can handle up to 200 g/s, and three therefore 600g/s.

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.

These calculations are for a **Self-Cooled** Steam Turbine. If instead it's being cooled by Thermo Aquatuners (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.

## Useful Links

* Sheets Calculator for Water amount and Steam pressure