"CoolProp" fluid thermodynamic properties Excel add-in

After searching over the internet for "Engineering Equation Solver EES package for Excel", I came through some other alternatives for Engineering Equations Solver thermodynamic properties calculator:

RefProp: Open source (free)

CoolProp: Open source (free)

XProps: Commercial package

1. CoolProp

Download the package (zipped file) from the following link

http://sourceforge.net/projects/coolprop/files/CoolProp/

1.1. Installation in Excel:

Unpack the zip file you downloaded to any folder on your hard disk "New folder"

Open "New folder\dist_temp\windows_superpack\Excel and DLL" and copy its contents

Create a folder in your partition C: "C:\CoolProp". It should be placed in C: partition even if it is not your system (default) partition.

Paste the copied files to the folder "CoolProp" you have created

Copy CoolProp.xlam to the default directory of Excel add-ins. To know the default directory of Excel add-ins in your PC, just create a new book and save it as Excel add-in file (*.xlam). Copy the address and discard saving this file.

Open Excel options and select add-Ins

Press "Go..." button shown highlighted by the red box in the image above and you will get a window like below. Check the "CoolProp" add-In so it will be automatically loaded each time you open excel.

It is done...

This is a demo after installation of add-in (see equation in equation bar). You can use cell references instead of direct values for sure.

and this is a snapshot after I have implemented this add-in in my Ref Analysis add-in

1.2. Comparison with EES:

1.2.1 Fluid properties

For real fluids the following are the available properties in EES and CoolProp (units displayed are as displayed in EES):

Property name	EES	CoolProp
Accentric factor	●	●
Conductivity [W/m.K]	●	●
Cp [kJ/kg.K]	●	●
Cv [kJ/kg.K]	●	●
Density [kg/m3]	●	●
Dipole [debye]	●
Ek_Lj [K]	●
Enthalpy [kJ/kg.K]	●	●
Entropy [kJ/kg.K]	●	●
Fugacity [kPa]	●
IntEnergy [kJ/kg]	●	●
isIdealGas [-]	●
MolarMass [kg/kmol]	●	●
P_crit [kPa]	●	●
P_sat [kPa]	●	●
Phase$	●
Prandtl [-]	●
Pressure [kPa]	●	●
Quality [-]	●	●
Sigma_LJ [m]	●
SoundSpeed [m/s]	●	●
SpecHeat [kJ/kg.K]	●	●
SurfaceTension [N/m]	●	●
T_crit [C]	●	●
T_triple [C]	●	●
Temperature [C]	●	●
V_crit [m3/kg]	●	●
Viscosity [kg/m.s]	●	●
VolExpCoef [1/K]	●
Volume [m3/kg]	●

1.2.2 Reference state

The reference state used in CoolProp is International Institute of Refrigeration IIR reference which assumes that the specific enthalpy of saturated liquid fluid Q=0 at 0 C equals 200 kJ/kg and the specific entropy at the same conditions equals 1 kJ/kg.K . From the other side EES uses three reference states IIR, Normal Boiling Point NBP, and ASHRAE, but they can be manually-correlated by adding constants in CoolProp.

1.2.3 Properties abbreviations (names) in CoolProp

Property name	Properties CoolProp codes
Accentric factor	w
Thermal conductivity	L
Cp	C
Cv	O
Density	D
Specific enthalpy	H
Specific entropy	S
Internal energy	U
Molar mass	molemass
Critical pressure	pcrit
Pressure	P
Quality	Q
Sound speed	A
Gibbs function	G
Surface tension	I
Critical temperature	Tcrit
Triple temperature	Ttriple
Triple pressure	ptriple
Minimum temperature	Tmin
Ozone depletion potential	ODP
Temperature	T
Dynamic Viscosity	V

Later, I will update this post and illustrate the notations, units.