External Thermodynamic System
The following assumes that you have installed external thermodynamic packages from a CAPE-OPEN compliant software in the manner outlined in Installing External Thermodynamic Packages — An Example.
Locate the Thermodynamics node and right-click to add an External Thermodynamic System (Figure 6-2). Using a Reaction Engineering or Chemistry interface, you can also add an external package by choosing External Thermodynamic System from the Thermodynamics section of the Reaction Engineering, or Chemistry, toolbar.
Select Property Package
All installed packages, from providers such as COCO/TEA, Aspen Properties, etc, are available in the Thermodynamic System Wizard (Figure 6-9). Select one of the packages and click the Finish button () in the upper right corner of the wizard in order to add the package as an External Thermodynamic System node under the Thermodynamics node.
When adding the package its default label reflects the included phases. For example, a node labeled Vapor-Liquid System (External) is created when adding an external package containing a vapor and a liquid phase. The name of the system can be changed using the Label text field in the Settings window for the system.
Figure 6-9: Available external thermodynamic systems. Use the Thermodynamic System Wizard to browse the contents of the installed external thermodynamic systems on your system. The example shows the packages shipped with the COCO provider.
Settings
Selecting the External Thermodynamic System node shows the thermodynamic system settings with sections for available species, phases, species properties, and mixture properties. Editing the text in the Label text field changes the name of the system. Below follows a description of the thermodynamic system settings.
Provider
Contains information about the external thermodynamic system provider such as version, CAPE-OPEN compliance, and a short description of the external software that provides the thermodynamic system.
Species
Lists the species included in the selected thermodynamic system.
Phases
Lists the phases included in the selected thermodynamic system for example gas, liquid, gas-vapor, or liquid-liquid.
Species Properties
Lists the parameter values or the functions that describe species properties, for example molar mass, and properties available for pure compounds, such as density as a function of temperature.
Mixture Properties
Lists the available functions that describe mixture properties. One example is the density of a nonideal mixture as a function of composition.
Figure 6-10: Settings window for an External Thermodynamic System.
The thermodynamic functionality supports package persistence. This means that an mph-file for a model that uses a thermodynamic system stores that package definition in the file. You can use the mph-file to access a thermodynamic system defined in the corresponding model without having to store the thermodynamic system as a separate file.