General Information

FluidProp is a standard interface to several software libraries for the calculation of thermodynamic and transport properties of fluids. This program is developed by P. Colonna and T.P. van der Stelt, Energy Technology Section, Delft University of Technology.

A 64-bit version of FluidProp is also available and is no different from the 32-bit version. When installing FluidProp on a 64-bit system, both a 64-bit as well as a 32-bit FluidProp will be installed. The default installation folder for the 64-bit version is C:\Program Files\FluidProp and for the 32-bit version C:\Program Files (x86)\FluidProp.

Each thermodynamic library implements one or more thermodynamic models for a number of different fluids and mixtures. Fig. 1 schematically shows the main structure of the program.

 

images/FluidProp00000000.gif

Fig. 1: FluidProp Structure

 

FluidProp makes it easy to obtain fluid properties in different MS Windows® programs and development environments because it is a COM server, i.e. it follows the Component Object Model standard, a software architecture developed by Microsoft to build component-based applications. COM objects are discrete components, each with a unique identity, which expose interfaces that allow applications and other components to access their features. COM objects are more versatile than Win32 DLLs because they are completely language-independent, have built-in interprocess communications capability, and easily fit into an object-oriented program design. COM was first released in 1993 with OLE2, largely to replace the interprocess communication mechanism DDE used by the initial release of OLE. ActiveX also is based on COM. Server means that it provides calculated values to a main program, which is usually defined as a client; therefore both programs implement a client-server architecture. The new Microsoft .NET runtime environment is fully compatible with the COM standard.

 

FluidProp provides a common interface to the following thermodynamic libraries:

GasMix

IF97

RefProp (not included in the FluidProp package, must be obtained from NIST)

FreeStanMix

TPSI

StanMix (Available at additional cost)

PCP-SAFT (Available at additional cost)

 

For more information about StanMix see:

  1. T.P. van der Stelt, N.R. Nannan, P. Colonna, 2012. ''The iPRSV equation of state.'' Fluid Phase Equil. , 330, pp. 24-35.

For more information about PCP-SAFT see:

  1. J. Gross, G. Sadowski, 2001. ''Perturbed-Chain SAFT: An Equation of State Based on a Perturbation Theory for Chain Molecules.'' Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. , 40, pp. 1244-1260.
  2. J. Gross, G. Sadowski, 2002. "Application of the Perturbed-Chain SAFT Equation of State to Associating Systems.'' Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. , 41, pp. 5510-5515.
  3. J. Gross, 2005. '' An Equation-of-State Contribution for Polar Components: Quadrupolar Molecules.'' AIChE J , 51 (9), pp. 2556-2568.
  4. J. Gross, J. Vrabec, 2006. ''An Equation-of-State Contribution for Polar Components: Dipolar Molecules.'' AIChE J , 52 (3), pp. 1194-2004.
  5. J. Vrabec, J. Gross, 2008. '' Vapor-Liquid Equilibria Simulation and an Equation of State Contribution for Dipole-Quadrupole Interactions.'' J. Phys. Chem. , B 112, pp. 51-60.

 

Independently from the syntax of the client program, the procedure for the calculation of a property is as follows:

First call the SetFluid procedure to define the thermodynamic library and the fluid, e.g.

SetFluid( LibName, FluidName)

This function also returns an object identifier (ObjID) or "memory address" which defines where the input information about the chosen fluid is stored in the memory of the computer.

Secondly call the procedure for the desired property and supply the object identifier, the input specification that defines the thermodynamic state and the corresponding values, e.g.

Enthalpy( ObjID, InputSpecifier, Value1, Value2)

 

Many thermodynamic properties can be computed by FluidProp with a large number of combinations of input properties to define the thermodynamic state:

Available Thermodynamic and Transport Properties

Available Thermodynamic State Definitions

 

One innovative feature of FluidProp is that for all thermodynamic models, except for IF97, it is possible to calculate some derived thermodynamic functions (see Table of available Thermodynamic and Transport Properties ) that are demanded e.g. by up-to-date CFD or process dynamics software. In this respect, see e.g.:

  1. Colonna, P. and Silva, P., May 2003. ''Dense Gas Thermodynamic Properties of Single and Multi-Component Fluids for Fluid Dynamics Simulations.'' J. Fluids Engrg. , 125, pp. 414-427.
  2. Colonna, P. and Rebay, S., 2004. ''Numerical simulation of dense gas flows on unstructured grids with an implicit high resolution upwind Euler solver.'' Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids . Accepted for publication.

 

At the moment the following programs and programming environments have been tested with FluidProp:

 

The Mathworks Matlab/Simulink (Matlab and Simulink Examples)

Microsoft Visual Basic (VB client Example)

Intel Visual Fortran (IVF client Example)

Microsoft Visual C++ (VC client Example)

Borland C++ Builder (BCB client Example)

Borland Delphi (BD client Example)

Microsoft Excel (Excel Example)

Maple (Maple Example)

LabView (LabView Example)

 

Every program or development environment supporting the COM standard can be client of the FluidProp server.

 

The following methods (or functions), ordered by category, are available in FluidProp:

Object creation and cleanup
CreateObject

ReleaseObjects

Working fluid definition
SetFluid

GetFluid

GetFluidNames

GetCompSet (obsolete)

Simultaneous calculation of all properties
AllProps

AllPropsSat

Solve

 

Primary tmd properties
Pressure

Temperature

SpecVolume

Density

Enthalpy

Entropy

IntEnergy

VaporQual

LiquidCmp

VaporCmp

GibbsEnergy

SurfTens

FugaCoef

Secondary tmd properties
HeatCapV

HeatCapP

SoundSpeed

Alpha

Beta

Chi

Fi

Ksi

Psi

Zeta

Theta

Kappa

Gamma

Transport properties
Viscosity

ThermCond



 

Fluid info
Mmol

Tcrit

Pcrit

Tmin

Tmax

AllInfo

Unit definition
SetUnits

SetRefState