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[fishsicles]

I do not know if anyone has posted about this kind of thing before; if they have, my apologies. The same goes if this is in the wrong place; I am new here, if not to DF.

This only really works when dealing with very large amounts of water, such as an aquifer or a river; I have found the design quite useful for draining flooded fortresses, as well as for creating needlessly massive waterfalls.

The basic layout for a floor is:

W: Wall
F: Floor
=: Water wheel
%: Screw pump (always pumps from direction of water wheel)
*: Gear assembly
-: Horizontal axle EW
|: Horizontal axle NS

Code: [Select]

WWWWWWWW
===%%FFF
W*-*WWWW
WWWWWWWW

The orientation is arbitrary; so long as the water wheel sits over the previous floor's pump output, it will function perfectly. An increased amount of pumps and water wheels allows for increased water movement and power generation, but takes up more space; this is the most compact version.

The pump assemblies can be built over the lower pump assemblies to allow power to move up levels. To use this as a generator, attaching another gear assembly in place of a horizontal axle on the floor in question works perfectly.

Code: [Select]

WW|WWWWW
W***WWWW
===%%FFF
WWWWWWWW

This can easily be run in parallel, which moves water faster and generates substantially more power, although not more than a stack.

Where N is the number of parallel systems, the net power produced comes out to: 90*N (+90 per water wheel) - 10*N (-10 per screw pump) - 3*5 (two gear assemblies, and a third to move the power out) - 1 (axle) = 80*N-16. Without the gear assembly to remove the power, a floor produces 80*N-11 instead.

Turning the assembly from the E-W orientation shown above to a N-S orientation is easy (the process can be reversed from this without too much thought). Make sure to expand the N value of the N-S device.

Code: [Select]

WWWWWWW
WWWWWFW
W*-*WFW
===%%FW
WWWWWWW

That is the extent of my information; I have a few more complicated structures that I designed but they do little but illustrate the principle. If screens are requested, I can provide them; I have not taken any captures at present but the device is not about to break down.

[Xenos]

This seems to be a variant of the dwarf water reactor...how efficient is it to add new segments?  is it more or less efficient as you add more wheels?  does the space->power efficiency change as you construct more wheels? 

In other words, is this a better design in some way?

[fishsicles]

The water reactor is slightly more efficient in a smaller space, because it does not use the extra gearboxes that this design does.

The full formula for how much power this generator puts out (W is the number of wheels, L is the number of levels):
PNet = (80*W-11)*L

Efficiency can be greatly increased by running a single pump from all of the wheels, which is less useful for moving water but changes the formula to:
PNet = (90*W-21)*L

A water reactor takes two levels and generates 170 Urists of energy with no outputs; this design puts out 138 Urists with a single wheel and the same number of levels. With two wheels, it puts out a much higher 298 Urists. The largest two structures I have built are a ten-level single-wheel tower, which generated 690 Urists, and a four-level triple-wheel structure, which put out an impressive 916 Urists. Experimenting with a two-level seven-wheel structure are underway.

In short, it is not comparable to the water reactor with a single wheel; it is far more modular, though, and with more space it beats out the reactor easily.

EDIT: Updated version of the design, optimized for tower use. Same legend as before, plus C for channel downwards.

Code: [Select]

NOTE: Designs with an even number of wheels will need an additional wall on one side to keep the design balanced.

Layer -1 (Reservoir)
WWWWWWWWWWWW
WFFFFFWWWWWW
WWWWWWWWWWWW

Layer 0 (Bottom, Even)
WWWWWWWWWWWW
WCW===%%FFFW
WWWW*-*WWWWW

Odd Layer
WWWWWWW*-*WW
WCWFFF%%===W
WWWWWWWWWWWW

Even Layer
WWWWWWWWWWWW
WCW===%%FFFW
WWWW*-*WWWWW

Top Layer (Odd)
WWWWWWW*-*WW
WCFFFF%%===W
WWWWWWWWWWWW


[Canalan]

I personally either use multiple reactors linked together or the hydroelectric dam concept.
I'm a fan of wasted space, so what?

[Xenos]

excellent.  post this design on the wiki as an alternate form of the reactor. 

[freeze]

I built one of these to power a 110z magma pump stack in my current fort. The requirement was for a compact footprint and minimal wood use. I specced a three level seven wheel design and ended up with 19 wheels and 13 pumps with a net output of ~1540U.

Design Notes:
My generator peaks at 1540 but can drop to 1240 at times. I suggest that you build your generator in one pass and as a unit to avoid this (probably well-known) issue with wheels and pumps. Build all the wheels on the top Z, starting on one side and moving to the other, drop a Z and repeat til done, then do the same for the pumps.

My initial 14 wheel build worked perfectly. I had to offset the lowest third of my pump stack and hence add more power for gears and axles. I could have rebuilt the generator from scratch to prevent the power variance issue but it was full of water and etc etc, so I kept throwing wheels and pumps at it until it would provide enough minimum power for the whole assembly.

zlevel 2
zlevel 1
zlevel 0