Insulated Pipe (Straight)

The insulated pipe has the same key figures as the Pipe (Straight): 10 litres per piece, at most 60,795 kPa, stressed from about 48,636 kPa. The only difference lies in the heat values – radiation, convection and solar heating are 0 in the game data. The gas inside keeps its temperature, however warm or cold it is around the pipe.

When you should insulate:

• Cooling loops inside the base: a cold pipe through a warm room would otherwise pick up heat that you have to get rid of elsewhere.
• Hot exhaust from furnaces or generators that should not heat your rooms.
• Lines outdoors in Mars nights (about −50 °C) or on Venus (737 K) when the gas should keep its temperature.

When you should not insulate: wherever heat is meant to go out or in – for example on the pipes to a radiator outdoors. There the heat exchange works for you.

The Kit (Insulated Pipe) is only made in the Hydraulic Pipe Bender and builds the same shapes as the normal pipe kit, from the straight piece to the crossing. You take it down with the wrench. The liquid variant is the Insulated Liquid Pipe (Straight). How heat travels through pipes is covered in Heat exchangers and heat transport: pipe to pipe, gas to liquid.