Heat Transfer Fluid Type (ID) in PySAM

marcelofer
Topic Author

20 Oct 2020 10:17 #8901 by marcelofer

Heat Transfer Fluid Type (ID) in PySAM was created by marcelofer

Hi all,

I have been using PySAM for my research work and had a question about the type of heat transfer fluids (HTFs) and their IDs. I have not been able to find which fluid ID corresponds to which HTF in the documentation and was wondering if you'd be able to help me.

Here are a few locations where this variable is used in PySAM:

Thank you in advance for your help!
Marcelo

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

pgilman

20 Oct 2020 11:23 #8904 by pgilman

Replied by pgilman on topic Heat Transfer Fluid Type (ID) in PySAM

Hi Marcelo,

You can determine the index for an HTF by looking at the SAM user interface.

For example, on the Solar Field page for the Physical Trough model, the Field HTF fluid (combo_htf_type) input is this dropdown list,
so combo_htf_type = 3 is the Therminol VP-1 HTF:

There is code in the user interface that translates combo_htf_type into a value for the SSC variable Fluid, so for Therminol VP-1,
you would set Fluid = 21:

Code:

equations{ 'Fluid' } = define() {
               return ?${combo_htf_type}
               [
                               18, //    18.) Nitrate Salt**
                               19, //    19.) Caloria HT 43**
                               20, //    20.) Hitec XL**
                               21, //    21.) Therminol VP-1**
                               22, //    22.) Hitec**
                               23, //    23.) Dowtherm Q**
                               24, //    24.) Dowtherm RP**
                               30, //    30.) Therminol 59
                               29, //    29.) Therminol 66    
                               31, //    31.) Pressurized Water    
                               50  //    user defined HTF
               ];
};

Another, more useful reference might be the comment block in materials.cpp in the SAM GitHub repository, which is a complete list of all of the Fluid ID values:

github.com/NREL/SAM/blob/c6f570b48f35ace11590b95fedf14216996d6598/src/materials.cpp#L298 .

Best regards,
Paul.

Attachments:

htf-dropdown.png

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

marcelofer
Topic Author

20 Oct 2020 13:01 #8907 by marcelofer

Replied by marcelofer on topic Heat Transfer Fluid Type (ID) in PySAM

That's an excellent answer, Paul! Thank you

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Moderators: pgilman