Water and Steam Thermophysical Property Calculation

1. Background

The thermophysical properties of water and steam are very important to researchers and engineers in various domains (energy, power, chemistry, materials …).

Usually, researchers and engineers rely on the NIST Refprop to calculate the properties. However, Refprop is commercial and not open-source. Therefore, I wrote this code to provide an alternative to the Refprop.

2. Brief Intro

Program Name: Ultra-high-resolution Water and Steam Thermophysical Property Calculation

Purpose: Calculate the very-high-resolution thermophysical properties at given point(s)

License: MIT

Technical Reference: IAPWS IF97

3. How-To: Build, Run, and Use

3.1 Build

3.1.1 Prerequisites

You need a C compiler to build.

• For Microsoft Windows users, mingw-w64 is required.
• For GNU/Linux Distro or other *nix users, the GNU Compiler Collections, known as gcc, is recommended.
• For macOS users, clang is easy to install and use (brew is not needed to install clang on macOS).

3.1.2 Build Guide

1. Use git to clone this code: git clone https://github.com/zhenrong-wang/water-steam-if97.git
2. Build command example: gcc *.c -o my-if97.exe -lm

Note: the -lm may not be valid for Windows or macOS. It is necessary for GNU/Linux distros.

3.2 Run

Run the Test Data

Suppose you have followed the steps above and built the my-if97.exe in the source code folder.

• cd test
• ../my-if97.exe (UNIX-like OS) or ..\my-if97.exe (Microsoft Windows)

If you see the output below, congrats, you’ve built the binary successfully.

...

1       25000000.00000000       873.00000000
1       23960000.00000000       811.00000000
1       6000000.00000000        811.00000000
1       6000000.00000000        573.00000000

# Calculation finished. Please check _properties.dat for results.
# Press any key to exit.

@ Any problems found, please contact the author.
@ Zhenrong Wang, [email protected].

An Example for UNIX-like OS:

Suppose the working directory is /home/amber/water-steam/

Suppose the absolute path of the executable is /home/amber/bin/my-if97.exe

• $ cd /home/amber/water-steam/
• $ vim _input.dat # Create an input file named ‘_input.dat’ with some input data (See Section 3.3 below)
• $ /home/amber/bin/my-if97.exe

An Example for Windows:

Suppose the working directory is C:\Users\amber\water-steam\

Suppose the absolute path of the executable is C:\Users\amber\bin\my-if97.exe

• Open a Command Prompt Window
• cd C:\Users\amber\water-steam\
• notepad _input.dat
• C:\Users\amber\bin\my-if97.exe

3.3 Use

For the _input.dat file, you need to input the data in lines. A single line refers to a point. Strict format:

POINT_TYPE(int),PARAM1(float/double),PARAM2 (float/double)

Please separate the params by a comma ‘,’

POINT_TYPE:

• 1 Pressure and Temperature
• 2 Pressure and Density
• 3 Pressure and Specific Internal Energy
• 4 Pressure and Specific Enthalpy
• 5 Pressure and Specific Entropy
• 6 Temperature and Density
• 7 Temperature and Specific Internal Energy
• 8 Temperature and Specific Enthalpy
• 9 Temperature and Specific Entropy
• 10 Specific Enthalpy and Specific Entropy
• 11 Pressure and Steam Dryness
• 12 Temperature and Steam Dryness

Example: 1,100000,300

Example: 1,1e5,3e2

Units:

• Pressure§: Pa
• Temperature(t): K
• Density®: kg/m3
• Specific Internal Energy(u): J/kg
• Specific Enthalpy(h): J/kg
• Specific Entropy(s): J/(kg.K)

3.4 Output

The program writes out a file named ‘_properties.dat’ in the working directory.

4 Bugs and Communications

This code was written years ago, and I didn’t continuously develop it. Therefore, bugs may occur.

If you are interested in this project, please submit issues to this repo. I’d be glad to communicate on any issues.

Or, you can also email me: [email protected]