CoolProp — The Complete Guide: Thermophysical Properties of Fluids and Refrigerants From Any Language
CoolProp is an open-source library that returns thermophysical properties of pure fluids, refrigerants and mixtures, based on accepted reference equations of state. It replaces leafing through steam and refrigerant tables with a single function call.
CoolProp
CoolProp Project
Thermophysical property data for over a hundred fluids, callable from any language.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Over a hundred fluids — water, air, refrigerants, hydrocarbons and industrial gases.
- Thermodynamic properties — pressure, density, enthalpy and entropy.
- Transport properties — viscosity and thermal conductivity.
- Humid air — psychrometric calculations.
- Many interfaces — Python, Excel, MATLAB, C++ and other languages.
How to use it
You specify two known properties and the fluid name, and get the property you need — for example the enthalpy of a refrigerant at a given pressure and temperature. That lets you build a refrigeration cycle, heat pump or Rankine cycle calculation in Python or Excel without copying values from tables.
Related tools
For kinetics and combustion — Cantera. For full process simulation — DWSIM. For dynamic models of thermal systems — OpenModelica.
Cantera
Cantera Developers
Chemical kinetics, thermodynamics and transport, callable from Python or MATLAB.
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DWSIM
DWSIM Project
Steady-state and dynamic process simulation for chemical plants.
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OpenModelica
Open Source Modelica Consortium
Simulate multi-domain physical systems with the Modelica language.
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Python
Python Software Foundation
The language behind most modern engineering computation, and its full ecosystem.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
CoolProp is a basic tool for every engineer doing thermodynamic calculations — accurate, free and available from any language.