The DLR ThermoFluid Stream Library
Dirk Zimmer, Michael Meißner, Niels Weber
Abstract
This paper introduces the DLR Thermofluid Stream Library: a free open-source library for the robust modeling of complex thermofluid architectures. Designed to be easy to use, easy to adapt, and enriched by a number of examples, this library contains the fundamental components for many different applications, such as thermal management of electric cars, power plants, or building physics. Different from many previous software implementations, the library exploits a new computational concept on the basis of the fluid inertance that derives the mass flow balance in such a manner that large non-linear equations systems in implicit form can be avoided. Hence, there is a reliable and efficient computational scheme for simulation and initialization. Although this scheme is explained in detail in previous publications, this paper focuses on the implementational aspects of the library, explaining its structure, the underlying equations of key components and providing basic examples. In addition to the practical value of the library, we also aim to display the underlying thought driving the design of the software.