Warp Core - Coil Flashing: Speed not Strength

[MajorD]

I think the length of the warp core has nothing to do with power production and everything to do with warp field production.

I hold the unpopular opinion that the warp core is what creates the warp field, based on how the warp field diagrams the field pinching is centered on the core, although, many think it is centered on the Bussard collectors for some reason. Also based on how the NX-01 crew had to steal a single warp coil, a foot and half wide disk, in order to get their warp engines working, and how a single Borg transwarp coil of the same size and integrated into the warp core is enough to get the ship to use transwarp. There's also an episode of Voyager where the warp core is used to create a field of some sort of particle to cover the entire ship.

I was watching the episode TNG: "Where No One Has Gone Before" and I noticed something very interesting, the ship puts the engines to warp 1.5 several times, but the blue coils of the core flash extremely rapidly because of the reconfiguration of the warp field by the Traveler. Even at higher warp factors the coils never flash that rapidly in normal use.

I think most people think the flashing is directly related to power production but I think this may be mostly wrong. Instead, I think the flashing is directly related to something to do with warp field configuration in relation to conventional warp factor, and is only connected to power production to the extent that it normally takes more power to go faster.

Here's a big leap, this makes me think the length of the core has nothing to do with power production. It's something that never made sense to me anyway, since power production is supposed to take place in the reaction chamber, not along the core's length.

[furswift]

I always thought that the warp core is the reactor, while the two vertical pipes that contain the blue coils are how matter and antimatter are distributed to the warp core, as they pulse towards the core. True, all the energy comes from the core; I guess the coils in the nacelles just tune and condition the energy to create and manipulate a warp field. They never explain how the negative energy to push space behind the ship is created, however.

[Jon]

Um as far as I remember, the reaction occurs in the M/ARA (Matter/Antimatter Reactor) which is the  round collar.
The blu flashy bits are the magnetic coils that feed into the reactor. Could be wrong though)

Matter from the top, antimatter from the bottom (at least on the Galaxy)

The reaction saturates the plasma in the Warp Power Transfer Conduits which carries it to the nacelles, powering the warp field coils.

[MajorD]

The columns being so big and bulky never made much sense to me. For the anti-matter perhaps, but for the matter I don't see why it's a mirror image. And if the rings indicate flow of anti-matter and matter, why are the rings of light so far appart? It would indicate very intermittent bursts of energy, instead of a steady low volume stream. The Defiant also has the two ends close together, so why not do the same on larger ships, since it would cut down on the space used for the reactor?

[furswift]

The columns being so big and bulky never made much sense to me. For the anti-matter perhaps, but for the matter I don't see why it's a mirror image.

The ratio of matter to antimatter in the reactor is always 1:1. TNG Coming of Age

[AricwithanA]

The columns being so big and bulky never made much sense to me. For the anti-matter perhaps, but for the matter I don't see why it's a mirror image. And if the rings indicate flow of anti-matter and matter, why are the rings of light so far appart? It would indicate very intermittent bursts of energy, instead of a steady low volume stream. The Defiant also has the two ends close together, so why not do the same on larger ships, since it would cut down on the space used for the reactor?

Well we know the speed of the the flashing rings on the warp coil increase when power consumption increases.  Even with a reaction happening each time the rings breach the center area, the ship can have a constant, not intermittent source of energy for the next ring replenishes the pool and the pool never gets below X (then power outages happen, etc).  Remember, this is a large ass explosion hapening.  Even our cars work like this, think of the matter/antimatter
as the spark plugs and the gas/o2 mixture.  Cars don't have an intermittent power flow, it is one constant flow.

One nacelle can hold two warp coils.  Warp Coils are what create the warp field when warp plasma is ran through the device.  I would wager, just by the sizes and shapes compared to what we know the ships can do, the size the the nacelles/coils effect the duration of the speeds, how quick speeds can be reached, maintained and how much funny business a chief of engineering can do to get out of a sticky situation. 

Who says the coils have to fill the entire nacelle (which the looks/shape of the nacelle could be an aesthetic choice in a way).  Who knows.  But I think there is a connection here.

[Black Patriot]

There is a bit of a canon problem when it comes to the warp coils, as Enterprise had the coil as a small object that was easily transported from place to place, whereas when Voyager was shown to be doing maintenance on its warp coils, which were huge and located in the nacelles, they had to use shuttlecraft to move them, link. Not to mention the episode of TNG that had a few scenes in one of the nacelles, where you could see all the warp coils.

From what I can tell, the M/AMR is where the power is generated, not where the warp field is generated. The core generates the power, which is passed to the nacelles via the warp plasma conduits, which then use the power to generate the warp field with the coils in the nacelles. It has been stated that when a nacelle is damaged that warp isn't possible until its repaired, if the core was generating the warp field then the ship should have been at least able to do warp 1, even without functioning nacelles.

It could be that the length of the core allows the matter/antimatter stream to be precisely tuned to generate as much power as possible, that way the Sovereign class would have a very efficient core, compared with the Defiant class, as the Defiant would need to basically throw as much M/AM at the core as it can to generate the huge amount of power it needs.

One thing I can't figure out is why a ship can't go to warp with one damaged nacelle, shouldn't the other be able to produce a field strong enough to move the ship, even if it wasn't as fast.

[AricwithanA]

One thing I can't figure out is why a ship can't go to warp with one damaged nacelle, shouldn't the other be able to produce a field strong enough to move the ship, even if it wasn't as fast./quote]

Warp field geometry.  You have to have two warp coils to produce a stable warp field. It also depends on how damaged the coils are.

[Black Patriot]

Warp field geometry.  You have to have two warp coils to produce a stable warp field. It also depends on how damaged the coils are.

What about the top section of the Prometheus, or the USS Kelvin, they've only got one nacelle? Surely its not impossible to generate a warp field with one nacelle, even if they were designed to operate as a pair. Also, memory alpha indicates that Voyager once ran on one nacelle during the "Year of Hell" 2 parter, though I can't remember those episodes that well. It would make sense to have a secondary field geometry loaded and ready in case one of the nacelles got damaged, it shouldn't be too hard to have the backup automatically kick in.

Memory Alpha article on Nacelles.

[MajorD]

furswift:  The materials are completely different. One has to be kept from touching anything and the other it doesn't matter. Also, they do mention different intermix ratios, even though there is only supposed to be one ratio. In real life, even though matter and anti-matter mix 1:1, the reaction won't be perfect for a given amount of material. Out of any given amount of material, the best you might get is a 45% reaction because of all the exploding material pushing stuff away and keeping it from reacting. So the different intermix ratios are probably a matter of balancing matter against anti-matter in order to have the most efficient reaction. More matter means you have a better chance of fully reacting with the anti-matter, but too much is wasted matter.

Ziktur:  Internal combustion engines are mostly reciprocating, and they get around the power spikes of high and negative energy through either rapid stroke cycles or multiple chambers running intermittently. Also, each cycle of a cylinder has a brief spray of fuel and air rather than continuous delivery.

Unless single core warp cores have a method of holding the fuel in the reaction chamber and gradually using it won't work that way. They could use it in bursts but then they would need a way to hold the energy and slowly release it to smooth out the spikes. I don't think either is likely since it isn't as efficient as a continuous stream.

I also think the nacelles shape the field produced by the warp core in order to produce movement, so I definitely think their size, shape, and placement matters.

[MajorD]

Black Patriot: I think "warp coil" refers to both the big and small kind, they may very well do the same sort of things.

Going by my idea, it just won't be very efficient if a two nacelle ship has to run on one nacelle. Since one nacelle ships aren't bilateral in the vertical, the slightly odd configuration of a two nacelle ship running on one nacelle shouldn't be so bad. A few missing coils should only result in a weaker warp system, by forcing the other nacelle to shut off the counterpart coils in the other engine. A single nacelle ship with missing coils would only have lowered propulsion, and no nacelle would equal no movement.

[MajorD]

What about the top section of the Prometheus, or the USS Kelvin, they've only got one nacelle? Surely its not impossible to generate a warp field with one nacelle, even if they were designed to operate as a pair. Also, memory alpha indicates that Voyager once ran on one nacelle during the "Year of Hell" 2 parter, though I can't remember those episodes that well. It would make sense to have a secondary field geometry loaded and ready in case one of the nacelles got damaged, it shouldn't be too hard to have the backup automatically kick in.

Memory Alpha article on Nacelles.

The bow section of the Prometheus has a top and bottom deploying nacelle, however, there is a single nacelle ship that appeared in a display and perhaps as part of the Wolf 359 graveyard.

[Black Patriot]

Black Patriot: I think "warp coil" refers to both the big and small kind, they may very well do the same sort of things.

Going by my idea, it just won't be very efficient if a two nacelle ship has to run on one nacelle. Since one nacelle ships aren't bilateral in the vertical, the slightly odd configuration of a two nacelle ship running on one nacelle shouldn't be so bad. A few missing coils should only result in a weaker warp system, by forcing the other nacelle to shut off the counterpart coils in the other engine. A single nacelle ship with missing coils would only have lowered propulsion, and no nacelle would equal no movement.

But at least a ship with a damaged nacelle should be capable of generating a stable, if low powered, warp field. That way they could limp to the nearest repair facility, or reinforcements.

Also, the Freedom class was equipped with only one nacelle, it was one of the background ships made for the Battle of Wolf 359. Freedom Class.

[zzz]

I was watching the episode TNG: "Where No One Has Gone Before" and I noticed something very interesting, the ship puts the engines to warp 1.5 several times, but the blue coils of the core flash extremely rapidly because of the reconfiguration of the warp field by the Traveler. Even at higher warp factors the coils never flash that rapidly in normal use.

pulses are the magentic constrictors in operation, indicating the rate of flow of matter and antimatter. I remember in a TNG episode where they went to warp whilst the camera was in engineering and the pulses increse to a smoother flow instead of the slow heartbeat. Why does normal matter have to be kept uncontaminated like the antimatter? maybe introducing foreign atoms alters the rate of reaction and energy, giving fluctuating outputs.

The ratio of matter to antimatter in the reactor is always 1:1. TNG Coming of Age

10:1 for warp 1 and ship power. 1:1 for warp 8.

From what I can tell, the M/AMR is where the power is generated, not where the warp field is generated.

yeah, warp field is definitely made by the warp coils and warp plasma in the nacelles. all the LCARS displays and tech talk supports it. but problems with the warp core can hamper warp field generation.

I think size of warp cores in general has shrunk as the technology has improved. TMP Enterprise had a gigantically long warp core. The Constellation class's was massive. Ditto the NX-01's. The Defiant's and the Soverign's have shrunk the assembly down enough so they can have multiple streams of M/AM entering the reaction chamber. The Intrepid class uses a cloud of M/AM separated by magnetic fields like in a photon torpedo, so the annihalation surface area is far greater.

[Aresius]

I think the warp-core is both.
I've got some displays taken from the series and all show very intersting things:

TNG:
The first is the All-Good-Things version.
http://www.lcars.org.uk/lcars_a21.htm
Here the field comes from the first coils of the nacelles and from somwehre far before the engineering-hull in the side view and from somewhere before the nacelles in the top-down view (I'm aware that the ramscoop has nothing to do with the warp-field). The top-down view gives the impression that the warp-core, situated in that area, radiates the field.

The next one is the field geometry test used in the one entrance exams of Wesley (where he met Mendon).
http://www.lcars.org.uk/lcars_zq.htm
Again, the field seems to emanate from the forwar coil-pair and te "forward torpedo launcher" (I know the launcher cannot radiate that, I'm just giving an expression of what I see).

Defiant:
http://www.lcars.org.uk/lcars_a193.htm
The top-down view gives the impression that the warp-field comes from the nacelles, more specifically from the forward end right BEHIND the Bussard-ramscoop, while in the side-view the warp-field seems to come from somehwere more to the front, even before the bridge. Trouble with the Defiant is that the warp-core is located far behind, near the end of the naceles.

Voy:
This is the diagram used  in Course of Oblivion:
http://www.lcars.org.uk/lcars_a84.htm
THe Warp-field radiates again from the first pair of coils on the nacelles, now on both the top-down and the side-view. The warp-core is far more at the front as we know.

So, so far, I have not seen any clear evidence that the warp-core is the sole source of the field. Neither, of course, is there evidence that the nacelle are the sole creators.

[Aresius]

Darn 2000 charater-limit...

BUT:
In the episode The Chase (Season 5), the Cardassians fire at the Enterprise and the Klingon Vor'Cha and hit their starboard nacelles,. The Commander ofthe lingon ship says they suffered damage and will be operational in less than an hour. Since the Enterprise departs without the Klingons, the nacelles warp-field generating systems must have been compromised.

The Warp-core now, we have often seen it flash at a higher rate when at warp and in the Nemesis-movie, we even see it work irregular as the warp-field collapses due to Shinzon firing at the Enterprise.
But we've heard it from very much every engineer of the series that the warp-cores fusion of matter/antimatter only creates ionised plasma that is transfered to the coils, where its injected and somewhat transformed to this warp-field. On this way, it is the main power-source of the ship, via the EPS-conduits. So the core has to flash faster inescapably because it has to deliver more plasma to the coils while still supporting the various systems of the ship.

What I'mt rying to say is: The core is not the source of the warp-field, the nacelles are, the evidences are onscreen in the LCARS displays. The flashing of the core indicates both however. Strength AND speed. Because to maintain the strength of the ship and its speed, it has to go flashing faster.

[zzz]

the field diagrams may give the impression the warp core is at the centre of it due to the void created by the 2 nacelle fields overlapping, like magnetic fields from 2 positive poles do. ST Captain's Chair has animated displays of the warp field powering up showing how the nacelles form them.

http://www.mediafire.com/?dzjmzjz2wzz

[furswift]

furswift:  The materials are completely different. One has to be kept from touching anything and the other it doesn't matter. Also, they do mention different intermix ratios, even though there is only supposed to be one ratio. In real life, even though matter and anti-matter mix 1:1, the reaction won't be perfect for a given amount of material. Out of any given amount of material, the best you might get is a 45% reaction because of all the exploding material pushing stuff away and keeping it from reacting. So the different intermix ratios are probably a matter of balancing matter against anti-matter in order to have the most efficient reaction. More matter means you have a better chance of fully reacting with the anti-matter, but too much is wasted matter.

  I don't think there's much chance of waste in a reaction. You could use the same particle type for matter and antimatter. Since they'll have opposite charges, they'll attract each other. After the initial explosion, some particles might be pushed away by photons, but they'd quickly attract and annihilate. I'd want the same delivery system for matter as for antimatter. You'd be able to control the flow of both equally and simultaneously, and magnetic delivery is much more efficient than some fuel injector or carburetor.

10:1 for warp 1 and ship power. 1:1 for warp 8.

  Source?

  The only reason why I see using more matter in the mix is if the explosion is so energetic that some matter is converted to energy. If that's the case, then it should be 1:1 for warp 1 and ship power, 10:1 for warp 8 although 10:1 seems too good to be true; it's just too much "easy energy".

[MajorD]

Black Patriot:
I like to think of the multiple nacelles a little like multi-engine aircraft. Two engines give a good amount of redundancy.

Thanks for the link, there is also the TOS Saladin. http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/sftm.htm

zzz:
The pulsing of the core going faster is normal for increases in power or speed. What is unique is that they had neither an increase in speed nor power output, they were messing only with the warp field.

I don't know what you mean about uncontaminated matter. The anti-matter can't touch any material, even air, or else it will combine with the matter and explode. That problem doesn't exist for the matter.

10:1 for warp 1 and ship power. 1:1 for warp 8.

What's that from?

Look carefully and the warp field pinching is centered on the warp core in the Enterprise-D diagrams. If the field were made by the nacelles, then they would be centered on the center of the nacelles, like a magnetic field on a magnetic rod. Instead, they're centered on the Bussard collectors if it's not centered on the warp core.

For size of warp cores, do you mean width or length, or both? Over all volume, the NX-01's warp core is one of the smallest because it's short. The reaction chamber of the Defiant's core is only a little smaller than the Galaxy, and the Sovereign's warp core is a little larger, both in width and length than the Galaxy. The Intrepid's warp core is the narrowest of the bunch and pretty short.

http://www.utopiaplanitia.info/ships/defiant/enginepic.gif
http://www.utopiaplanitia.info/ships/1701d/engineering.gif
http://www.utopiaplanitia.info/ships/1701e/engine.gif
http://www.utopiaplanitia.info/ships/voyager/engine.gif
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/File:USS_Voyager_warp_core_ejection.jpg

[MajorD]

  I don't think there's much chance of waste in a reaction. You could use the same particle type for matter and antimatter. Since they'll have opposite charges, they'll attract each other. After the initial explosion, some particles might be pushed away by photons, but they'd quickly attract and annihilate. I'd want the same delivery system for matter as for antimatter. You'd be able to control the flow of both equally and simultaneously, and magnetic delivery is much more efficient than some fuel injector or carburetor.

  The only reason why I see using more matter in the mix is if the explosion is so energetic that some matter is converted to energy. If that's the case, then it should be 1:1 for warp 1 and ship power, 10:1 for warp 8 although 10:1 seems too good to be true; it's just too much "easy energy".

You're right, I was thinking about something concerning antimatter weapons, that's the case where the anti-matter will disperse because of explosion.

You actually need more matter in order to create a plasma.

That mistake of mine got me thinking. I went to the Atomic Rockets site and I found a type of real life anti-matter reactor concept that sounds similar to the Trek style.

AM-Solid: ANTIMATTER SOLID CORE. Basically a NERVA design where a tungsten target replaces the reactor. 13 micrograms per second of antiprotons are annihilated. The gamma rays and pions are captured in the tungsten target, heating it. The tungsten target in turn heats the hydrogen. Produces high thrust but the specific impulse is limited due to material constraints (translation: above a certain power level the blasted tungsten melts)

Handling obscene levels of anti-matter without getting destroyed must be what makes dilithium special, as well as some other magical abilities.