Ship vs. Lava
- Thread starter NickP
- Start date
It depends on what ships IYTU are made out of. However, read this;
How Hot is a Volcano?
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Outreach/AboutVolcanoes/how_hot_is_a_volcano.htm
And then this;
Melting Points of Chemical Elements
http://www.chemistry.patent-invent.com/chemistry/melting_boiling_point.html
And remember that metals will deform at a much lower temp than their melting point. And then consider that any sealed construct will start to spring leaks once it's outer shell starts to warp. Especially if one side is at a different pressure than the other....
How Hot is a Volcano?
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Outreach/AboutVolcanoes/how_hot_is_a_volcano.htm
And then this;
Melting Points of Chemical Elements
http://www.chemistry.patent-invent.com/chemistry/melting_boiling_point.html
And remember that metals will deform at a much lower temp than their melting point. And then consider that any sealed construct will start to spring leaks once it's outer shell starts to warp. Especially if one side is at a different pressure than the other....
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Lava is up to 1200 C.
Titanium and some alloys have a melting point above 1650 C (Shuttle Re-entry temperatures), so they might not melt.
Several tools for the Ref kitbag:
Metals become weaker at high temperatures, so structural warping or even failure is possible.
Lava is rock, and it is very heavy ... it may crush the ship.
Almost everything on the hull will melt ... goodbye sensors and weapons.
A ship encased in rock will be a hard thing to free ... it may be a one-way trip into an eternal tomb.
Titanium and some alloys have a melting point above 1650 C (Shuttle Re-entry temperatures), so they might not melt.
Several tools for the Ref kitbag:
Metals become weaker at high temperatures, so structural warping or even failure is possible.
Lava is rock, and it is very heavy ... it may crush the ship.
Almost everything on the hull will melt ... goodbye sensors and weapons.
A ship encased in rock will be a hard thing to free ... it may be a one-way trip into an eternal tomb.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Ships in the OTU have an armoured hull the equivalent to a foot of steel, they can withstand the heat and stress of diving into gas giant atmospheres to refuel and they have some way of dealing with waste heat that makes it a thermodynamic miracle.
Floating around for a bit in lava shouldn't be a problem.
Floating around for a bit in lava shouldn't be a problem.
That would work fine. I need to keep them alive, but need to make the ship that they just acquired from the villain inoperable as it is too good for them to just waltz off with.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Monocrystal alloys are used today to make the turbine blades inside jet engines. They have the useful properties of not melting at high temperatures, not softening at high temperatures, and not suffering from creep.
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Travellerspud
SOC-12
assuming crystaliron or superdense has a high enough melting point, there are other concerns. the ship would take on a very high heat-load, that unless dealt with (pocket universe?) would fry the insides (electronics shutting down, crew dying). super-unobtainium insulation or fusion-powered super-conducting cooling systems could hand-wave it away for a bit, but that just slows down the heat-load somewhat. would your thrusters and sensors even work? perhaps an inertial navigation system of some sort...but the thrusters would be working against a much thicker/denser medium so their efficency would probably drop. and as pointed out, all lava eventually hardens into solid rock...but perhaps plausible for short periods.
I've always assumed that the subspace heat sink that I assume is the "magical" way Traveller ships use to deal with humongous amounts of heat can't open too deep into a gravity field. But since that heat sink is non-canonical anyway, you can just assume that it does work.
If there's no way to get rid of the heat, it doesn't matter if the hull metal can survive the temperature without distorting; anything inside it will be cooked.
Hans
If there's no way to get rid of the heat, it doesn't matter if the hull metal can survive the temperature without distorting; anything inside it will be cooked.
Hans
There is no data on melting points for the material(s) you are asking about.
Ex lady friend said something like a van would last a few minutes. But a starship hull? You're talking major shielding against raw nuclear radiation via a sun and micrometeorite damage. The cross sections from the floor plans themselves show the bulkheads to be many meters thick in some area (barring fuel capacity).
Admittedly it's not something I think is advisable, but I would imagine that it could last for a great deal of time, but would eventually have to lift off to save the crew and itself.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
Years ago I designed and built high temperature furnaces for industrial and research work for various companies. I could boil platinum in some of them (did in one once because the customer insisted on giving the run parameters to make him a ingot out of bits he accumulated.... but I digress) This assumes that the lava is either in contact with the hull or its heat can convect or radiate such that it acts on the hull.
You are doomed. First, immersed in lava there is no place to heat sink off to so the ship will quickly get hotter....ALL of it; insides, outside, people, stuff, all of it. That is, you have no way to keep the insides cool even if the outside is extremely hot (see Carnot heat engine theory on this).
So, you will last only as long as the insides don't get to say, about 60 to 70 C. After that everybody is toast....Literally.
The time that this will take depends entirely on the insulation efficency of the hull. If it were a true vacuum bottle (like a dewer bottle) you might go a while before things inside got too hot to handle.
The other problem here is going to be structurial failure of the hull. It will heat up fairly rapidly. Once the material reaches the plastic failure temperature (ie., it is now hot enough to bend or deform under some pressure or force) the hull will begin to buckle. That is usually a fraction of the melting point of whatever the material is. The more pressure, the faster it does so. Once it starts you are again pretty much doomed. Things will deform and likely stuff will stop working shortly thereafter like the power plant and engines (assuming the lava just can't flow in through some exhaust port or whatever).
Bottom line: You're DOOMED I tell you! DOOMED! :toast:
You are doomed. First, immersed in lava there is no place to heat sink off to so the ship will quickly get hotter....ALL of it; insides, outside, people, stuff, all of it. That is, you have no way to keep the insides cool even if the outside is extremely hot (see Carnot heat engine theory on this).
So, you will last only as long as the insides don't get to say, about 60 to 70 C. After that everybody is toast....Literally.
The time that this will take depends entirely on the insulation efficency of the hull. If it were a true vacuum bottle (like a dewer bottle) you might go a while before things inside got too hot to handle.
The other problem here is going to be structurial failure of the hull. It will heat up fairly rapidly. Once the material reaches the plastic failure temperature (ie., it is now hot enough to bend or deform under some pressure or force) the hull will begin to buckle. That is usually a fraction of the melting point of whatever the material is. The more pressure, the faster it does so. Once it starts you are again pretty much doomed. Things will deform and likely stuff will stop working shortly thereafter like the power plant and engines (assuming the lava just can't flow in through some exhaust port or whatever).
Bottom line: You're DOOMED I tell you! DOOMED! :toast:
Thanks Enoki for the very detailed response. That is the verdict that I shall be going for (as it suits my agenda anyway).
This is the great thing about these boards - the ability to get some professional input from people who know what they're talking about so that players can't argue back with their own two cents' worth!
This is the great thing about these boards - the ability to get some professional input from people who know what they're talking about so that players can't argue back with their own two cents' worth!
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
If you explain the heat problem with a ship in normal space as dumping that heat somewhere overboard, then the whole thing will heat up to an unlivable level rather quickly.
If using canonical hull materials, no, the ship probably won't melt. Nor will it significantly deform as a unit.
What you will find, though, is the small stuff will start to matter greatly. Seals around hatches might deform, making the ship leak to vacuum. Any exterior bits will have problems (sensors and such already being mentioned). If you allow the inside to heat up enough, electronics will slag (even fiber-optics should be affected), food will spoil, water will be undrinkable, people will be unable to sleep (with attendant psych issues - there's a movie or two with that idea, but I don't recall the names). Also, if you heat up the inside enough, you might get deformation of all those things that *aren't* made of duralloy/crystaliron/etc.: cabinet doors, stateroom walls (vs bulkheads), etc. You might also get problems with, say, vacc suits and other gear carried.
Of course, you might also just have some of their ammunition (or any demolition gear) cook off. The resultant holes might cause some problems.
Hmmm.... if they really insist, perhaps a fusion pack could begin to have problems with its containment. A FGMP pack losing containment inside the ship (with the PCs making a narrow and harrowing escape) should pretty well end the usefulness of that ship. :devil:
If using canonical hull materials, no, the ship probably won't melt. Nor will it significantly deform as a unit.
What you will find, though, is the small stuff will start to matter greatly. Seals around hatches might deform, making the ship leak to vacuum. Any exterior bits will have problems (sensors and such already being mentioned). If you allow the inside to heat up enough, electronics will slag (even fiber-optics should be affected), food will spoil, water will be undrinkable, people will be unable to sleep (with attendant psych issues - there's a movie or two with that idea, but I don't recall the names). Also, if you heat up the inside enough, you might get deformation of all those things that *aren't* made of duralloy/crystaliron/etc.: cabinet doors, stateroom walls (vs bulkheads), etc. You might also get problems with, say, vacc suits and other gear carried.
Of course, you might also just have some of their ammunition (or any demolition gear) cook off. The resultant holes might cause some problems.
Hmmm.... if they really insist, perhaps a fusion pack could begin to have problems with its containment. A FGMP pack losing containment inside the ship (with the PCs making a narrow and harrowing escape) should pretty well end the usefulness of that ship. :devil:
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Inside the ship you have a 0.5-10GW reactor for a typical PC ship :toast:
I would worry more about the waste heat from that than the external heat from a bit of lava. Fortunately Traveller has trivial magic heat sinks that makes worrying about such stuff moot.
A thin layer of an aerogel between the crystaliron or superdense hull and you have almost total insulation.
I would worry more about the waste heat from that than the external heat from a bit of lava. Fortunately Traveller has trivial magic heat sinks that makes worrying about such stuff moot.
A thin layer of an aerogel between the crystaliron or superdense hull and you have almost total insulation.
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Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
A few questions for the OP:
Why and how has the ship got into the volcano?
Are the drives still active / what stops it lifting out?
You want them to survive but lose the ship, right?
My suggestion (if it meets the above parameters) would be to let them blast out of the hold using a carried small craft, either by temporarily overpressuring the hold, blowing the doors open and allowing the small craft to rise through the lava inside a high-pressure bubble of air (with appropriate creaking noises from the small craft hull), or by opening the doors, letting the lava flow in and basically riding the lava out.
Both ideas would only work near the surface where the pressure and temperature might be survived by the small craft for a short while. You could even take the small craft from them by means of sustained damage if you wanted to.
Why and how has the ship got into the volcano?
Are the drives still active / what stops it lifting out?
You want them to survive but lose the ship, right?
My suggestion (if it meets the above parameters) would be to let them blast out of the hold using a carried small craft, either by temporarily overpressuring the hold, blowing the doors open and allowing the small craft to rise through the lava inside a high-pressure bubble of air (with appropriate creaking noises from the small craft hull), or by opening the doors, letting the lava flow in and basically riding the lava out.
Both ideas would only work near the surface where the pressure and temperature might be survived by the small craft for a short while. You could even take the small craft from them by means of sustained damage if you wanted to.
No, but you can make some up.
Let's begin with the Striker data that has crystaliron as 4 times "tougher" than hard steel, superdense 7 times, bonded superdense 14 times. Let's note that this applies as well when it's a laser cutting into the armor. This implies that the heats of vaporization for crystaliron, superdense, and bonded superdense are 4, 7, and 14 times higher than that of hard steel - and therefore that the heats of fusion and therefore the melting points are, very roughly, equivalently higher.
It's a stretch, probably violates several laws of physics, ignores alternative explanations that might allow these materials to shed extreme EM while remaining vulnerable to thermal conduction - but it's consistent with the game mechanics and defensible as sci-fi, at least to the extent that the idea of crystaliron, et al taking 4, 7, or 14 times as much energy to burn through is defensible.
What this means in a nutshell is that a starship hull's not likely to melt in a volcano. That "small stuff" issue Fritz pointed out is still likely to be a problem, though. A bonded superdense hull's not going to notice lava, but the seals on the airlock door might not be as resilient.
Now, as to the passengers - well, I'd point you to Enoki's response and suggest they find a way to get out of there quickly. "Almost" is not good enough when dealing with outside temperatures in the thousands of degrees and occupants vulnerable to temperatures of a mere 140 degrees or so; it's just a matter of time. I might also point out that getting out might be akin to trying to pull your ship out of a tar pit. I might also also point out that the H2 tanks may not hold out long once the fuel starts heating up in a big way, and since the hull is way stronger than the inner bulkheads ...
In a nutshell, it's something not too dissimilar from the potential fate faced in Neutron Star: an otherwise intact ship hull with a very dead crew and very messed up equipment inside.
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
I am not cleaning that mess up!
Ooooh! Idea for denying them the ship.... Require them to vent the liquid hydrogen - all the H2 - in order to keep from overheating. The ship won't be able to produce any power, then, and can't fly out. Perhaps the liquid H2 cools the lava enough to solidify it around the ship. :devil: Of course, the H2 has to escape, so there's this one tunnel through the hardened magma, letting them climb out.
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O
Omnivore
Guest
Not interested in contributing to this board.
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At those low levels of "toughness" starships would be made into Swiss cheese while travelling at interplanetary velocities between planets.
