{"id":5098,"date":"2016-03-22T11:48:37","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T16:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/?p=5098"},"modified":"2018-11-11T21:35:26","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T02:35:26","slug":"coolprop-to-the-rescue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/2016\/03\/22\/coolprop-to-the-rescue\/","title":{"rendered":"CoolProp to the Rescue"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, I am happy to welcome guest blogger Tom Egel<\/a> from MathWorks Consulting Services<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n

CoolProp to the Rescue<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Do you use the Simscape Thermal Liquid domain<\/a>? If so, then you should know about CoolProp<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Specifying fluid properties is an important part of creating an accurate simulation model. The industry standard REFPROP database from NIST<\/a> contains many fluid properties. There is a demo on MATLAB Central<\/a> showing how it can be used to parametrize a Simscape model.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Engine<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

Obviously, not all fluids in the universe are present in the REFPROP database. One notable omission is common antifreeze, also known as Ethylene Glycol<\/a> (or the more environmentally friendly Propylene Glycol<\/a>).<\/p>\r\n\r\n

This is where CoolProp comes in...<\/p>\r\n\r\n

CoolProp is an open source fluid property database very similar to REFPROP, and it provides wrappers so it can be called from MATLAB<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

To get started, go to their sourgeforge project page<\/a> and download those four files: +CoolProp.7z, CoolPropsetup.m, SwigRef.m, and the wrapper MEX-file for your operating system.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

With that on your path, you can obtain properties, for example the density, of a Propylene Glycol (PG) mixture using code like:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Obtaining<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The main function call CoolProp.PropsSI<\/tt> can only operate on scalar quantities (single temperature and pressure values), so the next step is to wrap the calls to CoolProp.PropsSI<\/tt> in for loops to create the 2D tables needed for the Simscape Thermal Liquid domain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Obtaining<\/p>\r\n\r\n

We can then call this function for the range of pressures and temperature of interest, and obtain the different properties needed by the Thermal Liquid domain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Obtaining<\/p>\r\n\r\n

And use the output in the Thermal Liquid Settings block:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\"Thermal<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Now it's your turn<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Do you simulate exotic fluids with the Simscape Thermal Liquid domain? How do you get you fluid properties data? Let us know by leaving a comment here<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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This week, I am happy to welcome guest blogger Tom Egel from MathWorks Consulting Services.\r\n\r\nCoolProp to the Rescue\r\n\r\nDo you use the Simscape Thermal Liquid domain? If so, then you should know... read more >><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5098"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5098"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8312,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5098\/revisions\/8312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/simulink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}