Rob TurpinIt's @nyrath 's fault I think about cooling fins.
Interstellar ship - work in progress.
(moved)Galbinus Caeli 🌯@thisnorthernboy @nyrath you need fewer fins, fins rotated 90 degrees, or fins divided into at least three rings. The surface of each fin should be pointed directly out to space, otherwise the fins are heating each other.
@SkipHuffman @nyrath Dammit. Good point. There will be another ring of fins, so I'll adjust when I add those. Thanks.
Winchell Chung ⚛🚀I'll just mention that some historical radiator designs tried to cram in lots of radiators by interspersed-reflectors preventing radiator-cross-heating. See image. Feel free to totally ignore this comment.
For inspiration, you can go to the link and admire the pictures. Do not bother with the pesky equations.
@nyrath Cheers fella. That’s helpful.
I have just one more tip that you are free to totally ignore.
If the spaceship has a nuclear engine, it is a good idea to trim the heat radiators into a triangular shape.
The idea is to prevent the radiators from sticking out of the safe "shadow" cast by the anti-radiation shadow shield atop the nuclear engine.
Otherwise the radiators will backscatter deadly atomic radiation into the ship and kill the crew.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/radiation.php#backscatter
Isaac Ji KuoWell ... this depends. I think the original design is okay.
See, it is labelled an "interstellar" ship, which implies cruise duration on the order of decades. As such, long term GCR shielding is a must, and this requires MUCH thicker shielding than the wimpy neutrons from a mere fission reactor (or even the fast neutrons of a fusion reaction).
The original design appears to have propellant tanks surrounding a central core (which may include the crew compartment?).
However, the number of radiator fins does seem excessive, and they do have a lot of mutual irradiation near the center. A smaller number of fins with larger area would be more optimal...
...well, you'd have to study it in more detail to figure out what's ideal. Hard to just guesstimate.