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[GoblinCookie]

Wouldn’t you just have something like a fireplace in that case to create a column of constant air flow?

That's the general idea.  The difference dwarf smokers have is that in order to smoke in their underground fortresses without quickly making the place uninhabitable they require special fireplace/chimneys.  That leads to the interesting question of would dwarves even smoke individually at all, or would they just burn smoke for everyone to inhale in a special room?  In any case smoking is very much linked to smoke mechanics which are presently absent and also mechanics about the flow of air (including wind) also largely absent.  It is really about connecting a syndrome to smoke, rather than to a substance, though we can presently evaporate substances and get a syndrome from inhaling I think.

[betaking]

posted this in the "tea" thread, but what about various medicines that are inhaled for medicinal or religious reasons?

stuff like poppy-derived traditional-medicines (that are essential the precursors to "opium", "heroin", etc.)...

[Bumber]

That leads to the interesting question of would dwarves even smoke individually at all, or would they just burn smoke for everyone to inhale in a special room?

Or would they each smoke their individual blend of choice in the same special room?

The goal isn't to keep a room filled with smoke. It's to concentate smoke in the lungs and then get rid of it so everyone can still breathe afterwards.

[GoblinCookie]

Or would they each smoke their individual blend of choice in the same special room?

The goal isn't to keep a room filled with smoke. It's to concentate smoke in the lungs and then get rid of it so everyone can still breathe afterwards.

They could, but it would be inefficient. 

[Bumber]

Or would they each smoke their individual blend of choice in the same special room?

The goal isn't to keep a room filled with smoke. It's to concentate smoke in the lungs and then get rid of it so everyone can still breathe afterwards.

They could, but it would be inefficient.

Square-cube Law says otherwise. Cover the volume of the room, or cover the volume of the dwarves' lungs? Remember that the smoke in the room is constantly being ventilated.

Furthermore, you still need to burn a whole stack of leaves even if only one dwarf is in the room. There's nothing efficient about it.

[betaking]

to be honest I think "smoking pipe" would make more sense to produce (in terms of the quantities that Dwarf craftspeople produce things in) than stuff like scepters.

[GoblinCookie]

Square-cube Law says otherwise. Cover the volume of the room, or cover the volume of the dwarves' lungs? Remember that the smoke in the room is constantly being ventilated.

Furthermore, you still need to burn a whole stack of leaves even if only one dwarf is in the room. There's nothing efficient about it.

If there is only one dwarf in the room what you say is absolutely correct.  However since all the dwarves cannot individually smoke in their rooms for ventilation reasons, there won't usually be one dwarf in the smoking room.  There will be lots of dwarves in the fortress smoking room, possibly some from the surrounding hillocks.  At that point economies of scale start to favour burning the leaves in a central brazier beneath the dwarves, having the smoke pass through grills in the floor into the smoking room and then out through the chimney.

Another aspect we have not discussed is how it is important that the smoke from the smokers not cool down before it reaches the surface.  The lower the 'surface area' of the smoke cloud in relation to the surrounding mass of the smoke cloud, the longer it takes for it to cool down.  Remember that the smoke rises through the chimney only because hot air rises, smoke is naturally heavier than regular air (or rather the particles are) so by default they will fall not rise becoming soot. 

Lots of small individual smoke clouds will likely cool down before they have gone through the chimney, causing the smoke to accumulate in the fortress.  A single large cloud of smoke cools down more slowly by contrast.

[scourge728]

-1

[Bumber]

@GoblinCookie
I disagree that pumping more smoke into the air is in any way more efficient or breathable. Economies of scale will reduce some of the waste, but it won't surpass the savings of several tiny fires in the same room. The ventilation needs to work regardless of hot smoke, or they're all going to die of CO2/CO poisoning.

[callisto8413]

+1  Yes please.  A Dwarf having a smoke with a pipe might help with stress and also give some of them a privately owned item to admire. 

[GoblinCookie]

@GoblinCookie
I disagree that pumping more smoke into the air is in any way more efficient or breathable. Economies of scale will reduce some of the waste, but it won't surpass the savings of several tiny fires in the same room. The ventilation needs to work regardless of hot smoke, or they're all going to die of CO2/CO poisoning.

It is not a question of agreeing of disagreeing it is a question of the basic laws of physics.  I agreed that for a smaller number of dwarves, having several small fires (in effect them individually smoking) is more efficient, but as the number of dwarves in the room at the same time goes up, things switch over. 

We'll assume the smoking room is surrounded by air-tight doors (a basic addition for when ventilation is a thing), so we don't have to worry about the smoke of C02 getting into the rest of the fortress.  It is built around a chimney, according to rather the same setup as for forges really.  The dwarves smoke in the room and the smoke exits through the chimney, without affecting the rest of the fortress.

One of the main issues with the ventilation is very much hot smoke/cold smoke.  If you have cold smoke it will hover around in the air until it eventually settles down over everything as soot.  This soot is an issue that requires cleaning up, but the greater the relative surface area of something the slower it cools down; no logical reason smoke is an exception.  That means we will have less soot if we combine all our smoke into one single cloud than if we have an equivalent amount of smaller clouds, since less of it will cool down and fall as soot with less relative surface area.

If you think of the smoke mechanics like this.  When the smoke leaves the fire, it is all hot and it heads upwards as a single mass.  As the cloud cools down it does so at the edges, causing cold smoke to seperate be left behind.  In a similar fashion to dust, the particles in the cold smoke are heavier than the surrounding area causing them to fall to the ground as soot.  The aim of dwarven chimneys is for as much of the smoke to reach the surface as quickly as possible so as little of it lingers as cold smoke and turns into soot inside the fortress. 

[Bumber]

It is not a question of agreeing of disagreeing it is a question of the basic laws of physics.

I disagree with your understanding of the basic laws of physics.

We'll assume the smoking room is surrounded by air-tight doors (a basic addition for when ventilation is a thing), so we don't have to worry about the smoke of C02 getting into the rest of the fortress.  It is built around a chimney, according to rather the same setup as for forges really.  The dwarves smoke in the room and the smoke exits through the chimney, without affecting the rest of the fortress.

And then everybody in the room suffocated to death. Nice work, GC.

(Also, keep in mind that the drug is contained in the smoke you're trying to get rid of so quickly.)

[GoblinCookie]

And then everybody in the room suffocated to death. Nice work, GC.

(Also, keep in mind that the drug is contained in the smoke you're trying to get rid of so quickly.)

It is contained in the smoke that is inhaled by the dwarves, irrespective of how much time it spent in the room before they did so. 

As I said, a larger body of smoke heads more quickly up the chimney because it cools down slower, due to it's surface area relative to it's volume being larger.  You are not seriously going to argue that something with a lower surface area relative to it's volume does NOT cool down slower Bumber?  You are also I presume not going to argue against the proposition that smoke rises because hot air does?

[Bumber]

It is contained in the smoke that is inhaled by the dwarves, irrespective of how much time it spent in the room before they did so.

And how might the amount of time the smoke spends in the room impact the efficiency of material use?

As I said, a larger body of smoke heads more quickly up the chimney because it cools down slower, due to it's surface area relative to it's volume being larger.  You are not seriously going to argue that something with a lower surface area relative to it's volume does NOT cool down slower Bumber?  You are also I presume not going to argue against the proposition that smoke rises because hot air does?

Is our goal to maximize the amount of smoke going up the chimney, or is it to minimize the amount of excess smoke?

Did you account for the fact that putting out a greater volume means you still get more soot everywhere? Do you know how quickly the smoke is going to cool when it comes in contact with the cold sides of the upper chimney? Do you know where gravity sends clumps of soot when they can no longer stick to the chimney? Did you consider the difficulty of keeping that chimney clean?

But more importantly: Did you forget that combustion turns O2 into CO2? Did you know that CO2 is of greater or equal density compared to O2? Did you account for the fact that turning solid material into smoke further increases the air pressure of the room? Did you figure out how you're going to get O2 from the surface against that pressure gradient? Do you know what combustion produces if it doesn't get enough O2? Do you know what happens to dwarves if they don't get enough O2, or if they inhale CO?

The solution involves a fan or surface wind to get O2 into the room, regardless of getting rid of the smoke. (Ideally, the O2 enters near the floor of the room.) We maximize breathability using the least amount of combustion possible, which means not building a bonfire or brazier in the room. We use tiny fires in smoking pipes, ensure the overwhelming majority of it ends up in the lungs, and then let it out in small puffs to be carried away by the air current.

[scourge728]

aaaand now we're back into airflow debates, guys you all know this never ends well