Dear Luis,
Thank you for the feedback. I will share your suggestions for modeling a Brayton cycle and linking to the REFPROP database. Because the database is not free, I don't think we can directly link to it from SAM, but perhaps we could include some instructions for how to work with data from the database in SAM.
Would you be willing to share the results of your validation work with the SAM team or with other SAM users? Please contact me using the
SAM support mailbox
if you prefer not to share it on the support forum.
It is not possible to modify the algorithms in SAM's simulation modules, either by changing code in the FORTRAN source code files included with SAM, or using the
SAM Software Development Kit (SDK)
. The application programming interface (API) in the SDK allows you to set the values of inputs and read outputs from the simulation modules, but not to modify the code in a module.
We provide the FORTRAN source code files with SAM to supplement the manuals and other documentation for people who want to understand the simulation algorithms. SAM's simulation engine is precompiled, so you cannot change it by modifying the FORTRAN files.
The exception to this is for people who have purchased and installed the
TRNSYS
simulation platform. The SAM CSP models run TRNSYS in the background to generate performance model outputs. If you have a copy of TRNSYS, you can use and modify the FORTRAN files provided with SAM to build a simulation model in TRNSYS. Or, you can modify the simulation modules in TRNSYS and use them in SAM, as described briefly in the
SAM Help system
.
We are migrating SAM's performance models away from TRNSYS to the SAM simulation core (SSC), which you can access through the API included with the SDK. For now, only the photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, and solar water heating performance models use SSC, so they are the only performance models accessible through the API. (All of SAM's financial models use the SSC, so they are accessible through the API.) In the next one or two versions of SAM, all of the performance models will use SSC instead of TRNSYS.
Best regards,
Paul.
