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Is there an open-source heat exchanger library written in Modelica?

Is there an open-source heat exchanger library written in Modelica which covers different types of heat exchangers? Like on this web page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger

Solution

  • Based on your previous posts and your Wikipedia link I assume that you need heat exchanger models for power plant simulation.

    The one in MSL (Modelica.Fluid.Examples.HeatExchanger) is a generic, discretized model, not calculating heat transfer/pressure drop from plate or tube/shell geometry or condensation/evaporation as can be found in various norms and textbooks. However, you can extend the model to include e.g. number of tube tiers/rows etc. and you can add your own two-phase heat transfer models based on Modelica.Fluid.Pipes.BaseClasses.HeatTransfer.PartialFlowHeatTransfer. But this requires a bit of work from your side.

    Otherwise, there are a number of freely available options — among others:

    1. ClaRa library by XRG/TLK Thermo (www.claralib.com) is extremely capable and aimed for power plant simulation. Note that the version you can find on GitHub is not the official library maintained by the original authors.
    2. ThermoPower by Francesco Casella (github.com/casella/ThermoPower) has been around for many years and its models are well proven and documented.
    3. Modelica Buildings Library (github.com/lbl-srg/modelica-buildings) has a number of different heat exchanger models that are all very easy to use but are without geometrical information. This library uses MSL fluid connectors.