Fusion Reactor (Mekanism)

The Fusion Reactor is a late-game multiblock structure added by Mekanism. It consumes Deuterium and Tritium to generate large amounts of power.

Construction
The exact list of materials varies depending on how many Reactor Glass blocks and Reactor Ports are used, as these blocks replace Reactor Frames:
 * 40 to 63 Reactor Frame
 * At least 2 Reactor Ports (3-4 are common)
 * 1 Laser Focus Matrix (optional in Mekanism v10)
 * 1 Reactor Controller
 * up to 22 Reactor Glass (optional)
 * up to 1 Reactor Logic Adapter (optional)

Structure
The Fusion Reactor is a 5x5x5 spherical multiblock structure. It is primarily built out of Reactor Frames. The five central blocks on each of the four sides may be replaced by Reactor Glass or Reactor Ports. The bottom cannot include Reactor Glass, but does allow Ports. The top center block must be a Reactor Controller, and may have Reactor Glass or Ports placed next to it. Before Mekanism v10, a Laser Focus Matrix is required; it must be the center block in one of the sides.

Like with other Mekanism multiblocks, a correctly built Fusion Reactor will emit red particles when the structure is completed.

The following example structure has Reactor Glass or Ports placed wherever possible (except for the bottom), and includes a Laser Focus Matrix. This is a functional air-cooled Fusion Reactor.

Fuels
The reactor runs on D-T Fuel, a mixture of Deuterium and Tritium. These gases are typically inserted separately. The reactor will automatically combine them into D-T Fuel and inject them into the reactor chamber at a customizable rate.

The injection rate, which the player may set in the Reactor Controller's GUI, determines how fast D-T Fuel is mixed and inserted into the reactor chamber, and thus how much energy is produced. The minimum injection rate is 2, or 4 if water-cooled. At this rate, the reactor uses 1 mB of Deuterium and 1 mB of Tritium per tick. Since amounts smaller than 1 mB cannot be transported and the ratio of the two fuel components is always 1:1, injection rates must be divisible by 2. The highest possible injection rate is 98, at which 49 mB/t of each fuel component will be used.

Since Deuterium and Tritium are usually inserted separately, a typical Fusion Reactor will have at least 3 Reactor Ports instead of the minimum two: one each per fuel component, and one to extract energy.

Players may also pre-mix D-T Fuel in a Chemical Infuser and have it transported into the reactor. However, any D-T Fuel that is inserted into the reactor directly is used up all at once in an instant, ignoring the set injection rate. A reactor which is fuelled in this manner can achieve extremely high power generation numbers, but an unreasonably large supply of fuel is needed to sustain the reaction. It is therefore not commonly done.

Extracting Energy
There are three possible ways in which the heat that the Fusion Reactor creates can be turned into usable power.

The first and most simple method does not require any additional setup: the reactor can turn heat directly into Forge Energy (FE), which the player may simply extract from the structure using a Reactor Port. A reactor used in this manner is called air-cooled. A pair of Quantum Entangloporters or high-throughput energy transportation methods from other mods (such as Cryo-Stabilized Fluxducts from Thermal Expansion) are useful for this, as the massive amount of energy generated by the reactor is far too much for Ultimate Universal Cables to handle.

The second option is a watercooled reactor. Instead of only extracting FE directly, water may be piped into the reactor. It will quickly be converted into Steam which can then be used in an Industrial Turbine to create FE. This will result in significantly more power being generated in comparison to an air-cooled Reactor, provided that the Turbine is large enough to use all of the steam throughput (a maximum size Turbine is recommended). It is usually required that Saturating Condensers be included in the Industrial Turbine structure so that used steam may be turned back into water and sent to the reactor, forming a closed loop. Though most of the Fusion Reactor's heat output will go into steam production, it nevertheless still produces a significant amount of FE directly, which may also be extracted in addition to steam. Therefore, a typical water-cooled reactor requires 5 Reactor Ports: two for fuel, two for water and steam, and one for power.

Lastly, it is also possible to extract heat directly using Quantum Entangloporters. The heat can be sent to a Thermoelectric Boiler, which can use it to boil water into steam. This is called an externally cooled reactor and is slightly more effective than water-cooling. At high injection rates, the player may have to construct multiple Boilers and Turbines to keep up with the extreme amount of heat the Fusion Reactor generates. Multiple Quantum Entangloporters and Reactor Ports are required to effectively transport all of the heat to the Thermoelectric Boiler(s).

Powering up
The fusion reaction is started by firing a powerful energy pulse from a Laser Amplifier into the reactor's Laser Focus Matrix. The Laser Amplifier should contain at least 400 million FE, which is enough for the reactor to instantly reach its ignition temperature of 1 million °C.

Because a single Laser would take a very long time to fill the Amplifier with this much energy, it is common to build a chain of multiple amplifiers that point into each other, each getting charged by lasers on the sides. The final Laser Amplifier, which must point into the Laser Focus Matrix, should have its Redstone mode set to "PULSE" so that the player can easily trigger it with any Redstone signal.

To start the reaction, a Hohlraum filled with D-T Fuel must be inserted into the single item slot inside the Fusion Controller. Afterwards, the player may activate the Laser Amplifier. If all prerequisites are met, the reactor should now start working. This is easily noticeable thanks to a colorful animation inside the structure.

In Mekanism v10, the Reactor may alternatively be ignited using a Resistive heater set to its maximum consumption of 10 million FE/t instead of a Laser pulse. The Hohlraum with D-T Fuel is still required; however, the Laser Focus Matrix can be omitted from the structure if this method is used. Instead, an additional Reactor Port into which heat can be inserted must be used. The reactor will automatically start the reaction as soon as the required temperature is met.

Additional Information

 * The Reactor Logic Adapter may be used to control the reactor with computers, such as from OpenComputers or ComputerCraft.
 * Since Mekanism v10, players in Creative Mode may right-click the Laser Focus Matrix with a Configurator to instantly start the reactor without needing a Laser pulse.