Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Draco18s]

A mirror that large might make one square of rock into 7/7 magma.
Sunlight on that area isn't all that much energy.

[Quitschi1337]

uhm why dont power the furnaces directly by the lens?
maybe over mirror constructions that lead the ray into the mountain

[Align]

quote:Originally posted by Quitschi1337:
<STRONG>uhm why dont power the furnaces directly by the lens?
maybe over mirror constructions that lead the ray into the mountain</STRONG>

Laser beam traps!

quote:Originally posted by Eagle of Fire:
<STRONG>Some youngsters use lens to heat up insects for fun... Would it really be that impossible in real life to use lens to heat up rocks enough so they begin to liquefy? </STRONG>

Yes. It's hot, but not hot enough to melt rock.

[BurnedToast]

quote:Originally posted by Align:
<STRONG>Yes. It's hot, but not hot enough to melt rock.</STRONG>

Theoretically you could heat something to ~6000C with solar power, which is plenty to melt rocks  :p. Realistically, you won't ever get that thanks to atmospheric absorption and other effects, but I imagine with a good lens you could probably heat something up to at least 1600C (which happens to be the hottest temperature magma gets). It would be impractical to use solar power to make magma though, you would need a HUGE lens to make any significant amount and it would all cool off every night anyway.

However you don't really need to make magma, you could just build a solar furnace and use that. Modern solar furnaces can get as high as 3000C which is plenty hot enough for anything the dwarves can make now. Even if the dwarves can only get half that, it's still basically the same temp as the magma we have and we make steel with that (even though you really shouldn't be able to).

Anyway, a more 'fantasy' idea (even though I *like* the thought of dwarven solar furnaces) in icewind dale, the dwarves who live in dorn's deep use portals to the elemental plain of fire to make magma and forge things - that could be neat once magic gets put in (plus has the added bonus of maybe having fire creatures invade through them sometimes).

[Alfador]

A giant glass lens could be used to construct a "solar smelter" or...

...to construct a solar trap. In Adventure Mode it would only work in the daytime, but in Fortress mode it could combine with a cloth cover to make a trap capable of incinerating most foes.

[Troas]

Solar power?  Need I remind you that exposure to ordinary unconcentrated sunlight  can make even legendary champions violently ill?  And you want to concentrate this?  You would have more death and disability among sun pit workers than you would drafting a platoon of fey weaponsmiths and setting them to spar.  Any hauler that passed by the door to the pit would probably be struck blind by the radiance.

I believe we should be exploring reactions involving booze.  Every dwarf knows that even in its drinkable state booze is explosively flammable.  Perhaps we could re-distill it with charcoal/coke, saltpeter, goblin bone meal, powdered native aluminum, or other ingredients to produce a fuel that burns hot enough to melt rock.

[Align]

quote:Originally posted by Troas:
<STRONG>Solar power?  Need I remind you that exposure to ordinary unconcentrated sunlight  can make even legendary champions violently ill?  And you want to concentrate this?  You would have more death and disability among sun pit workers than you would drafting a platoon of fey weaponsmiths and setting them to spar.  Any hauler that passed by the door to the pit would probably be struck blind by the radiance.</STRONG>

LASER BEAM TRAPS.

[Alfador]

quote:Originally posted by Troas:
<STRONG>Solar power?  Need I remind you that exposure to ordinary unconcentrated sunlight  can make even legendary champions violently ill?  And you want to concentrate this?  You would have more death and disability among sun pit workers than you would drafting a platoon of fey weaponsmiths and setting them to spar.  Any hauler that passed by the door to the pit would probably be struck blind by the radiance.

I believe we should be exploring reactions involving booze.  Every dwarf knows that even in its drinkable state booze is explosively flammable.  Perhaps we could re-distill it with charcoal/coke, saltpeter, goblin bone meal, powdered native aluminum, or other ingredients to produce a fuel that burns hot enough to melt rock.</STRONG>

Ooh that gives me an idea: Powdered... I think it's aluminum, iron oxide, and magnesium = insta-magma, just add ignition. I've never tried it, and the only person I know who has, managed to create a puddle of molten metal on his high school chem lab table, so I may have the formula wrong... but...

[ilnar]

thermite,,, aluminium filings and powderd rust,,, light with magnesium fuse,,
used to melt through engine blocks and weld train tracks together,,, insta liquid iron

[Sowelu]

That would be thermite.  The magnesium is only there to start the reaction (you need a ton of heat to kick it off).  Thermite traps would be neat: Once you get your alchemist, aluminum ore + iron ore = 10 thermite traps in your alchemist's bench.  Works like a stonefall trap, you need to reload it with a new thermite trap each time it gets set off.  But BOY would it hurt.

As for increasing the volume of magma by dumping stone in, I'm unfond of that idea.  By raising the temperature of the dumped stone, you would be lowering the average temperature of the whole flow. And why doesn't it melt walls if that's the case?

[0x517A5D]

quote:Originally posted by Alfador:
<STRONG>Ooh that gives me an idea: Powdered... I think it's aluminum, iron oxide, and magnesium = insta-magma, just add ignition. I've never tried it, and the only person I know who has, managed to create a puddle of molten metal on his high school chem lab table, so I may have the formula wrong... but...</STRONG>

You got it right.  Thermite is aluminum + rust.  Usually a binder is used to make the compound into a sort of paste, so it can be easily applied.  The magnesium strip is not part of the reaction, it is used to ignite the thermite.

Edit: Well.  Looks like I was late.

[ January 11, 2008: Message edited by: 0x517A5D ]

[Draco18s]

quote:Originally posted by Alfador:
<STRONG>Ooh that gives me an idea: Powdered... I think it's aluminum, iron oxide, and magnesium = insta-magma, just add ignition. I've never tried it, and the only person I know who has, managed to create a puddle of molten metal on his high school chem lab table, so I may have the formula wrong... but...</STRONG>

It's called Thermite (composition of aluminium powder and a metal oxide).  Takes magnesium to light (or something that burns as hot as magnesium such as a propane torch, but it's easy to get sparklers in most states and they contain a little magnesium).  Thermite burns hot enough to melt through the engine block of a car (up to 2500 °C (4500 °F) with iron(III) oxide).  It provides its own oxygen in the process and as such will burn underwater (etc) making it almost impossible to put out.

[ilnar]

ok last 5 posters.... chemists or just misspent childhoods?

[Sowelu]

MISspent?!

[Idiom]

Wouldn't the magma solidify once the cold rocks are submerged?
Heat energy would be limited unless it's added directly into an active shaft. You really shouldn't be able to get magma to flow too far from the shaft in a 1 tile width channel too.
Just how complex is the heat system in DF?
...

Somewhere around someone said magma floodgates are impossible in reality even with ubor fantasy metals or bauxite because the magma would cool enough to solidify as soon as it hit the gate.

[ January 11, 2008: Message edited by: Idiom ]