Pure and Pseudo-pure Fluid Thermophysical Property Evaluation and the Open-Source Thermophysical Property Library CoolProp

Ian H Bell; Jorrit Wronski; Sylvain Quoilin; Vincent Lemort

doi:10.1021/ie4033999

Pure and Pseudo-pure Fluid Thermophysical Property Evaluation and the Open-Source Thermophysical Property Library CoolProp

Ind Eng Chem Res. 2014 Feb 12;53(6):2498-2508. doi: 10.1021/ie4033999. Epub 2014 Jan 13.

Authors

Ian H Bell¹, Jorrit Wronski², Sylvain Quoilin¹, Vincent Lemort¹

Affiliations

¹ Energy Systems Research Unit, University of Liège , Liège, Belgium.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark , Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.

Abstract

Over the last few decades, researchers have developed a number of empirical and theoretical models for the correlation and prediction of the thermophysical properties of pure fluids and mixtures treated as pseudo-pure fluids. In this paper, a survey of all the state-of-the-art formulations of thermophysical properties is presented. The most-accurate thermodynamic properties are obtained from multiparameter Helmholtz-energy-explicit-type formulations. For the transport properties, a wider range of methods has been employed, including the extended corresponding states method. All of the thermophysical property correlations described here have been implemented into CoolProp, an open-source thermophysical property library. This library is written in C++, with wrappers available for the majority of programming languages and platforms of technical interest. As of publication, 110 pure and pseudo-pure fluids are included in the library, as well as properties of 40 incompressible fluids and humid air. The source code for the CoolProp library is included as an electronic annex.