162: Chapter 162 Failure Model of External Circulation Thermal Management

When returning to the Outpost, it was already evening.

After the outer door closed, the first negative pressure isolation chamber began to evacuate air.

Red sand was blown out bit by bit from the gaps in the sacrificial layer of the G-Explorer-C's footpads, the tow rack pivot, the probe tip, and the communication relay interface, spreading into an extremely thin layer on the white collection filter membrane.

Jiang Lin stood outside the isolation window, watching that layer of red sand being flattened by the airflow.

He did not immediately touch that sample tube.

Follow the protocol first.

Outer layer purge.

Probe independently sealed.

Footpad contact surface photographed and archived.

Tow rack stress point inspection.

E-01 remote status confirmation.

Micro-clamp enters the secondary isolation box.

Finally, it was the turn of that off-white crystalline residue tube.

[N73-LNE01-CoolantResidue-01]

When the sample tube was delivered to the analysis platform by the robotic arm, Jiang Lin lowered his head to glance at the time.

Day sixty-five, 18:47.

From the eleventh transmission until now, a full sixty-five days.

In the first sixty days, he built the G-Explorer-C, modified the three-wheel state machine, discarded two sets of footpad sacrificial layers, recalibrated six relay nodes, and completed thirty-seven rounds of thin-shell surface simulation tests.

The truly useful on-site results were just a tube of off-white residue weighing less than two grams.

But these two grams of stuff might be more valuable than an entire dragged-back wreckage.

Because it was not an isolated shape.

It came from a line.

A line jointly carved out from the cooling interface orientation of PMCU-17, the L-NE-01 fracture, thermal infrared residuals, and the shear direction of surface collapse.

Jiang Lin opened the analysis workflow.

The first round performed lineage fingerprinting, microscopic surface morphology, and initial thermal response screening.

Under the lens of the analysis platform, that crystal particle was magnified into a patch of off-white, rough terrain.

It was not an ordinary salt crust.

The surface had obvious flaky deposits, with extremely fine black particles sandwiched between the flake layers.

Some edges showed color gradients after high-temperature oxidation, and local cracks unfolded along the same direction, not looking like natural weathering, but rather like being repeatedly pulled apart and compressed during periodic thermal expansion and contraction.

MPS-Agent α aligned the sample images item by item with the Outpost sample database.

Saline-alkali deposit database, low match.

Ordinary ablation layer detachment database, low match.

External cooling bypass experimental residue database, partial match.

PMCU-17 body cooling pipeline inner wall debris database, highest match degree.

The screen refreshed.

[Lineage Similarity: 0.44]

This number was not pretty.

But it ranked first.

Jiang Lin wrote in the log column—

[Probability of long-term circulating deposition residue of engineering fluid increased.]

[Weak material lineage correspondence exists between L-NE-01 and the PMCU-17 cooling pipeline.]

After finishing writing the three words weak correspondence, he paused for two seconds and moved the cursor to the next line.

[This weak correspondence is sufficient to enter the TM-7 outer ring topological model, but insufficient to serve as an independent conclusion.]

This was the key.

It was not about proving something.

But rather being able to enter the model.

A sample, if it could only make people excited, had no value.

Being able to change the model was what made it valuable.

Jiang Lin pulled up all three hundred images of the L-NE-01 fracture.

White light.

Near-infrared.

Oblique light.

Thermal infrared.

The same section of the fracture presented different shapes under four light sources.

The outermost layer was a ceramicized ablation protective layer.

Further inward was the honeycomb-cracked pressure-bearing shell.

Sandwiched in the middle was a layer of light-colored thermal insulation material.

On the innermost side, instead of a single cavity, there were three parallel curved micro-channels.

This was not an ordinary pipeline.

Ordinary pipelines were responsible for sending fluid from point A to point B.

This thing was more like a distribution splitter.

Jiang Lin's gaze lingered on those three curved micro-channels.

If L-NE-01 was just a section of the cooling trunk line, then it should present a relatively clean main channel cross-section.

But it did not.

What it presented were splitting, thermal insulation, pressure bearing, ablation protection, and multi-layer thermal management structures.

In other words, it was very likely not a pipe.

But rather a functional segment within some kind of service layer.

This point was even more important than the lineage similarity of 0.44.

Jiang Lin dragged the cross-sectional view of the PMCU-17 cooling interface to the side.

The two cross-sections were placed side by side.

The PMCU-17 cooling interface was more regular, looking more like a device port.

L-NE-01 was rougher, looking like a structural fragment exposed after being sheared by strata.

The dimensions did not match.

The angles did not match.

The interface configurations also did not completely match.

According to ordinary puzzle logic, this was enough to rule out the same pipeline.

But looking at them, Jiang Lin instead straightened his back a bit.

Because he shouldn't have been looking for the same pipeline from the very beginning.

PMCU-17 was not a cooling pipe.

It was the outer ring maintenance calculation unit.

A maintenance unit should not be installed on the main trunk line.

It should be attached to a bypass, branch line, service node, or diagnostic node.

MPS-Agent α's conflict report popped up quickly.

[Conflict 1: The pipe diameter of the L-NE-01 fracture does not completely match the main interface of PMCU-17.]

[Conflict 2: The number of inner micro-channels in L-NE-01 is inconsistent with the PMCU-17 port records.]

[Conflict 3: The current thermal lag only supports passive heat capacity differences and does not support active heat exchange.]

[Conflict 4: On-site magnetic disturbances are not synchronized with low-frequency vibrations, not supporting mechanical circulation.]

After scanning through it, Jiang Lin directly wrote a line below the report.

[Conflicts retained]

Afterwards, he wrote a second line.

[Conflicts 1 and 2 are no longer regarded as purely negative items, transitioning to bypass/branch line/service layer node assumptions.]

On the right side of the screen, MPS-Agent α automatically rearranged the inference tree.

The original main line was — [PMCU-17 cooling interface] — [L-NE-01 fracture] — [outer ring cooling pipeline]

Now it became — [PMCU-17 outer ring maintenance node] — [bypass/branch line connection] — [L-NE-01 service layer fracture] — [outer ring annular thermal management network]

Looking at the new tree, Jiang Lin picked up a marker and walked to the front of the Outpost's north wall.

An old judgment was originally written there.

[PMCU-17: TM-7 peripheral maintenance calculation unit.]

He added a new line below it.

[Day 65 Update: PMCU-17 is no longer regarded as isolated wreckage, upgraded to a candidate for the TM-7 outer ring service layer maintenance node.]

Early the next morning, Jiang Lin headed to Northeast Seventy-Three for the second time.

The G-Explorer-C re-measured along the outer arc of L-NE-01 for four hours and only recovered E-01.

In E-01's nighttime temperature curve, there was a weak thermal lag.

The amplitude was too small.

Insufficient for upgrading.

Jiang Lin archived it as — [L-NE-01 nighttime thermal lag: present, reproducible, insufficient intensity.]

Subsequently, the G-Explorer-C actively retreated in front of two seemingly promising suspected points.

One place had obvious thermal infrared residuals, but the footpad contact matrix was completely normal.

Another place had abnormal low-frequency echoes, but no magnetic field response.

On the seventy-first day, there were three consecutive days of low wind speed.

Jiang Lin headed to Northeast Seventy-Three for the third time.

The G-Explorer-C was released from the seventy-kilometer milestone and advanced laterally along the outward projection direction of L-NE-01.

After superimposing the thermal infrared images, footpad contact matrices, low-frequency echoes, and weak magnetic field responses from the previous two expeditions, MPS-Agent α marked an extremely shallow arc-shaped thermal residual on the northeast side.

Staring at that arc, Jiang Lin dropped a temporary designation for this residual.

[L-NE-02 candidate arc band]

[Model evidence level: M1]

[On-site evidence level: E0]

The G-Explorer-C slowly advanced along the outside of the arc band.

For the first five hundred meters, everything was noise.

At the six-hundred-and-twentieth meter, the G-Explorer-C executed a routine micro-vibration injection.

On the low-frequency echo map, a very short blank section appeared.

Like a wave hitting some kind of high-impedance boundary and being deflected in another direction.

Jiang Lin had seen this feedback before.

Near the old PMCU-17 excavation site.

At that time, he classified it into the complex reflections of the landslide body and did not process it separately.

Now, the exact same feedback appeared on the L-NE-02 candidate arc band.

He had the G-Explorer-C move laterally by one meter.

The echo blank weakened.

Move laterally by another meter.

Disappeared.

Return to the origin.

Reappeared.

The thermal infrared arc band narrowed here.

The magnetometer gave a weak response.

The footpad contact matrix showed normal surface support, but a hard boundary existed beneath the low-frequency echoes.

Three types of channels interlocked.

A prompt popped up on the screen.

[L-NE-02 local on-site evidence upgraded]

[On-site evidence level: E2]

[Allowed: deploy disposable environmental recording box on the safe side]

[Prohibited: approach the center]

Jiang Lin chose to deploy E-02.

The recording box's short spikes embedded into the safe-side surface, its shell vibrated for less than two seconds, and the status light lit up before extinguishing.

It would not transmit back.

It would only write.

If it could be dragged back to the Outpost, it was evidence.

If it could not be dragged back, it was cost.

The G-Explorer-C conducted a small-scale arc scan along the safe side, taking measurements every twenty degrees.

After eleven sets of data, a fragmented arc appeared on the screen.

There was a lot of noise and the length was very short.

But when this arc, the L-NE-01 fracture, and the old PMCU-17 excavation site were plotted onto the map simultaneously, Jiang Lin stood up.

Three points alone could of course be fitted into countless beautiful stories.

What truly made Jiang Lin stood up was not the arc itself, but the fact that the arc simultaneously pinned down three types of things: the low-frequency anomaly of the old PMCU-17 excavation site, the direction of the L-NE-01 fracture, and the thermal residual boundary of L-NE-02.

They did not just fall into the same arc geometrically.

In different Physics channels, they gave the exact same direction.

Like three projections left on the shallow surface by an annular structure whose diameter far exceeded the current collapse zone, after being sheared by strata, compacted by landslides, and torn apart by long-term weathering.

MPS-Agent α began fitting.

[Candidate outer ring arc segment: ARC-NE-01]

[Input points: old PMCU-17 excavation site, L-NE-01 fracture, L-NE-02 low-frequency boundary]

[Fitting confidence: 0.28]

[Estimated curvature radius: greater than the scale of the currently measurable collapse zone]

[Restriction: prohibited to infer the inner ring position based on this.]

This time, Jiang Lin did not stare at 0.28.

What he was staring at was another line.

[Candidate outer ring arc segment: ARC-NE-01]

Outer ring, arc segment.

Put together, the meaning of these two words had changed.

The so-called outer ring was finally no longer a spatial directional term.

Nor was it a general term for a pipeline anymore.

It began to have geometry.

Jiang Lin projected the map onto the portable screen, his fingers moving slowly along that fragmented arc.

PMCU-17 leaned west on the arc.

L-NE-01 was on the northeast side.

L-NE-02 was further out.

The three were not randomly scattered.

They looked like three fracture points exposed after the same set of service layers was torn apart.

PMCU-17 was the maintenance node.

L-NE-01 was the bypass or branch line fracture.

L-NE-02 was the annular boundary projection.

Jiang Lin created a new layer on the map.

[ TM7 _ Outer _ Service _ Ring _ v0.1 ]

Afterwards, he changed the label of the old excavation point for PMCU-17.

Old label: [ PMCU-17 Wreckage Point ]

New label: [ PMCU-17: Outer Ring Maintenance Node Candidate ]

The label for L - NE-01 was changed to: [ L - NE-01: Suspected Phase Change Bypass Fracture ]

The label for L - NE-02 was changed to: [ L - NE-02: Outer Ring Service Layer Boundary Candidate ]

When the three labels connected into an arc, a structure that could be further calculated appeared on the map for the first time.

This was the result.

On the morning of the seventy-second day, G - Explorer - C dragged back E-02.

After the isolation chamber completed its exterior cleaning, Jiang Lin accessed the read-only port.

E-02's data unfolded on the screen.

The temperature curve showed a brief stagnation.

Amplitude 0.11 ℃.

Lasting one hundred and eighty seconds.

The magnetic field synchronization showed low-amplitude disturbances.

In the low-frequency vibration channel, a very small narrowband noise increase appeared within the same time window.

For the first time, all three types of channels had weak responses.

MPS - Agent α popped up a prompt.

[ Evidence Level: E2 ]

[ Upgrade Suggestion: E3 Candidate ]

[ Upgrade Basis: Three-channel weak synchronization + L - NE-02 position matches ARC - NE-01 geometric fit ]

[ Restriction One: Does not support active heat sources. ]

[ Restriction Two: Does not support mechanical circulation. ]

[ Restriction Three: Does not support real-time operation. ]

Jiang Lin changed it to: [ E2 + ]

But this time, he did not push it back into ordinary anomalies.

E2 + was already enough.

Enough to write L - NE-02 into the outer ring layer.

Enough to upgrade ARC - NE-01 from a draft map to a formal task object.

Enough to give the cache entry THERMAL _ PHASE _ BYPASS a candidate range of map coordinates for the first time.

He opened the PMCU-17 cache fields.

[ RING-3 COOLANT STATE ]

[ THERMAL _ PHASE _ BYPASS ]

[ CAPILLARY _ PRESSURE _ DROP ]

[ OUTER _ LOOP _ OVERLOAD ]

[ PHASE - CHANGE _ ROUTING _ FAILURE ]

These words were just fragments in the past.

Like fault words shaken out from the nerve endings of a dead machine.

Now, they were beginning to have corresponding positions.

RING-3 was no longer just a ring number.

It might correspond to a certain layer of the outer ring service structure.

THERMAL _ PHASE _ BYPASS was no longer just a bypass entry.

It might correspond to diversion fractures like L - NE-01.

OUTER _ LOOP _ OVERLOAD was no longer just a system-level alarm.

It might explain why the outer ring service layer was torn open by overload, why PMCU-17 seemed to have been sheared off from a certain service node, and pushed near the old fracture mouth by strata movement.

Jiang Lin connected all the on-site data, sample genealogies, thermal lag curves of E-01 and E-02, PMCU-17 cache fields, and ARC - NE-01 geometric fitting results into the same working directory.

Directory name: [ TM7 _ Outer _ Thermal _ Failure _ Model ]

On the Outpost main screen, MPS - Agent α began generating the first version of the structural diagram.

The core area was not drawn.

The inner ring was not drawn.

The entrance was not drawn.

All parts exceeding the boundaries of the evidence were left blank.

But on the northeast side of the outer ring, a clear arc appeared for the first time.

There were three marked points on the arc.

PMCU-17.

L - NE-01.

L - NE-02.

The three points were connected by thin gray lines.

Written beside the line: [ Outer Ring Service Layer Candidate Arc Segment ]

Jiang Lin added the first functional inference to the outside of the arc segment.

[ Function One: High-pressure phase-change cooling load distribution. ]

Second. [ Function Two: Bypass takeover and local load reduction. ]

Third. [ Function Three: Maintenance node status monitoring and offline caching. ]

Fourth. [ Function Four: Frozen-state isolation after the outer ring chain break at the end of the catastrophe. ]

After writing all four, the meaning of the model changed completely.

It was no longer just where something might be.

Instead, it began to answer what this set of things was originally used for.

Jiang Lin picked up his pen and drew the state chain in his paper notebook.

Normal operation: The core heat source transfers the thermal load to the inner ring heat exchange layer.

The inner ring heat exchange layer transfers the thermal load to the outer ring service layer through the high-pressure phase-change network.

The outer ring service layer disperses the thermal load through bypass nodes.

A certain area overloads, and bypass takes over.

Bypass takeover fails, local load reduction occurs.

Load reduction is insufficient, entering the frozen state.

The frozen state still cannot be maintained, and the outer ring chain breaks.

Maintenance nodes go offline.

PMCU-17 enters offline diagnosis.

The emergency cache preserves the last batch of status fields.

After this chain was written out, many originally scattered things began to fall into place.

Why are the specifications of the PMCU-17 cooling interface redundant?

Because it is not an ordinary maintenance terminal, but a node hanging on the high heat flux density outer ring service layer.

Why is there RING-3 COOLANT STATE in the local logs?

Because it had monitored at least one layer of annular cooling status.

Why does THERMAL _ PHASE _ BYPASS appear?

Because bypass takeover might be the outer ring's first response to local overload.

Why does CAPILLARY _ PRESSURE _ DROP appear?

Because once capillary pressure drop anomalies occur in the high-pressure phase-change network, bypass is no longer a choice, but survival.

Why does outer ring Physics destruction affect the synchronization of civilization data high-dimensional compression protocols?

Because the underground main array is not just lacking power, nor is it just lacking communication.

It might have first lost the blood vessels that carried away the heat.

This point was the most valuable achievement.

Heat was not a secondary problem.

Heat was the primary problem of the TM-7 outer ring system.

Jiang Lin wrote the official serial number on the front page of the model.

[ TM-7 Outer Ring Thermal Management Failure Model v0.1 ]

The next line was the model's function.

[ Purpose: Explain the engineering relationship between the PMCU-17 going offline, the outer ring service layer fracture, phase change bypass faults, and the inner ring frozen state keep-alive records. ]

The next line down was the next stage of tasks.

[ Task One: Find the bypass node corresponding to THERMAL _ PHASE _ BYPASS. ]

[ Task Two: Confirm whether RING-3 is the outer ring service layer number. ]

[ Task Three: Track the pressure drop direction corresponding to CAPILLARY _ PRESSURE _ DROP. ]

[ Task Four: Retrieve all time-series fragments related to OUTER _ LOOP _ OVERLOAD in the PMCU-17 cache. ]

[ Task Five: Establish a realistically migratable boundary: phase-change bypass architecture for high heat flux density computing systems, doing principle preparation. ]

After writing the last one, Jiang Lin's hand paused for a moment.

Realistically migratable boundary.

These words were very light.

But they represented another direction.

If the high-pressure phase-change bypass network of the TM-7 outer ring had really supported a regional-scale underground computing array, then what it left behind was not just Wasteland archaeological clues.

It might also be an autopsy report of a future high heat flux density computing system.

Jiang Lin turned off the reality migration branch and shifted his gaze back to the TM-7 outer ring model.

On the screen, that ARC - NE-01 arc segment lay quietly in the map.

For the first time, the grayish-white collapsed area was no longer just a grayish-white collapsed area.

It had become a torn engineering drawing.

PMCU-17 was an outer ring maintenance node candidate.

L - NE-01 was a phase-change bypass candidate.

L - NE-02 was an outer ring service layer boundary candidate.

THERMAL _ PHASE _ BYPASS had a direction to look for for the first time.

Jiang Lin looked at the screen and didn't move for a long time.

Not because of shock.

But because he was rearranging many years of Wasteland time ahead.

The previous goal was to find fragments.

The current goal was to find nodes.

Fragments could only prove that something used to be here.

Nodes could tell him how this set of things operated and how it died.

The two were not on the same level.

At 11:20 at night, the wind outside the Outpost grew strong again.

The wind turbine output increased, and the battery charging power on the status screen began to recover.

Jiang Lin stood in front of the whiteboard and crossed out the old task bar.

[ Northeast Seventy-Three Second Expedition: Searching for Outer Ring Fractures ]

Below, he wrote the new task.

[ Northeast Seventy-Three Three-Stage Task: Locating THERMAL _ PHASE _ BYPASS Bypass Nodes ]

Find the bypass node.

Find out why it took over.

Find out why it failed.

Find out the real location of RING-3 in the outer ring service layer.

If these could be closed, then [ INNER _ RING _ FREEZE _ KEEPALIVE _ RECORD ] would no longer be just a low-confidence trigger condition.

It would be put into a complete failure chain to explain what kind of self-rescue process TM-7 executed before the outer ring chain broke.

Jiang Lin wrote the last line of words into the front page of the model.

[ v0.1 Conclusion: The TM-7 outer ring is not a cooling pipe, but an annular thermal management service layer. PMCU-17 is a maintenance node candidate for this service layer. The next-stage objective is upgraded from searching for fragments to locating bypass nodes. ]

After finishing writing, he saved the file.

The file name was fixed.

[ TM7 _ Outer _ Thermal _ Failure _ Model _ v0.1 ]

The prompt indicating saving was complete popped up.

Jiang Lin stared at that line of words, finally raised his hand, and wrote the last sentence of the day in his paper log.

[ On the seventy-second day, the outer ring became a tool for the first time. ]

In the assembly room, G - Explorer - C lay on the lifting platform.

The white scratches on its foot ends hadn't been replaced yet.

E-02 lay quietly in the isolation rack.

PMCU-17 remained silent, like a black obelisk refusing to answer.

But Jiang Lin was no longer just staring at it.

His gaze crossed over PMCU-17 and fell on the newly emerged arc on the map.

One arc, three points, one model.

Starting from this night, in Jiang Lin's eyes, TM-7 was no longer just a black box buried underground.

For the first time, it revealed its engineering structure.

And structure meant it could be calculated.

Being able to be calculated meant it could continue to be dismantled.