EESLib

EESLib is a Python library for heat transfer and thermodynamics calculations, derived from Engineering Equation Solver (EES) functions. It is designed for educational use in the ME564 Heat Transfer course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Features

EESLib provides implementations for various engineering calculations including:

Fluid Properties

• Thermodynamic properties (enthalpy, entropy, density, etc.) using CoolProp
• Functions for common fluids with temperature, pressure, and quality inputs
• NOTE: The CoolProp fluid property implementation approach differs from the fluid properties in EES! Do not expect perfect correspondence between properties obtained using either method. CoolProp is generally less robust and slower than the native EES implementation.

Heat Transfer Functions

• Internal Flow: Nusselt number and friction factor calculations for pipe and duct flow (laminar, turbulent, transitional)
• External Flow: Heat transfer and friction for flow over plates, cylinders, and other geometries
• Boiling and Condensation: Heat transfer correlations for boiling and condensing fluid with various geometries
• Heat Exchangers: NTU and LMTD calculations for various flow configurations
• Fin Efficiency: Efficiency calculations for fins with various profiles and tip boundary conditions
• Radiation: Blackbody radiation, view factors, and radiative heat transfer functions. Note that a catalog of view factors with number ID assignments is provided in a PDF distributed in the source code folder.

Utilities

• Unit conversions
• Lookup tables for various properties
• Talbot inversion for Laplace transforms
• Result printing and PDF generation utilities

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python 3.14 or higher
• Packages listed in requirements.txt

Install from PyPi

Quick Setup

Open a command window with the same privileges used to install Python.

conda activate me564 
pip install eeslib

Full Setup

1. Download miniconda executable from (https://www.anaconda.com/download/success#miniconda)
2. Run installer:
   • Choose "Just for me" option
   • Check 'yes' for Add Miniconda3 to PATH, and 'yes' for registering as the default Python
3. Download code resources from Canvas: Files/Lectures/examples_<version#>.zip. This folder contains a number of examples that we’ll use in both lecture and homework codes.
4. Create the me564 environment in conda. In the command window, type:

   conda create -n me564 python=3.14
   

5. Open command window (shell). Navigate your command window to the folder you downloaded. For example, type:

   cd C:/path/to/my/folder/examples
   

6. Activate your conda environment. In the command window, type:

   conda activate me564
   

7. Install the EESLib package from PyPi

   pip install eeslib
   

8. Automatic PDF reports are created from EESLib using LaTeX. This requires two tools to be installed on your computer that generate the reports.
   • Download and install the miktex compiler from https://miktex.org/download
   • Miktex uses Perl to run. Download and install Perl from https://www.perl.org/get.html The ‘Strawberry Perl’ version is recommended for Windows.

Install from source

Use this option if you are going to make local changes to the EESLib package source code.

git clone https://github.com/uw-esolab/eeslib.git
cd eeslib
pip install -e .

Usage

Import the library modules as needed:

from eeslib import fluid_properties as fp
from eeslib import internal_flow as iflow
from eeslib import functions as fn

# Get water properties at 100°C and 1 atm
rho = fp.density('Water', T=373.15, P=101325)
print(f"Density: {rho} kg/m³")

# Calculate Nusselt number for pipe flow
Nu, f = iflow.pipeflow_nd(Re=10000, Pr=7, LoverD=50, relRough=0.001)
print(f"Nusselt number: {Nu}, Friction factor: {f}")

# Convert units
temp_c = fn.converttemp('F', 'C', 212)
print(f"212°F = {temp_c}°C")

Modules

License

Portions of this code are derived from Engineering Equation Solver (EES) under license restrictions and is intended for educational use at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Contributing

This library is maintained for educational purposes. Please contact the instructor for contributions or modifications.

Testing

EESLib includes a comprehensive test suite to ensure functionality and catch regressions.

Running Tests

Install test dependencies:

pip install -e ".[dev]"

Run all tests:

python run_tests.py

Run specific test file:

python run_tests.py tests/test_fluid_properties.py

Run with coverage:

pip install pytest-cov
python -m pytest --cov=eeslib --cov-report=html

Uploading a new version to Pypi

To upload a new version of EESLib to Pypi, follow the steps outlined in the Python packaging tutorial.

The preferred packaging tool is setuptools.

The most relevant steps are as follows:

1. Don't forget to update the code version number in pyproject.toml and in the src/__init__.py file.

2. Open a command window and navigate to the eesdir directory, such as

   cd C:\repositories\eeslib
   

3. Ensure the build and packaging tools are installed in the Conda environment that you're using. The preferred method will install a developer tools, including build, pytest, and twine, specified in the pyproject.toml file in the eeslib directory:

   pip install .[dev]
   

   Alternatively, you can manually install packages:

   python -m pip install --upgrade build 
   python -m pip install --upgrade twine
   

4. Build the Python distributable

   python -m build
   

   This should create a folder dist/ that contains a wheel (.whl) and tar.gz file.

5. Upload the file to Pypi. You will need to have first created a username and API token, following the packing tutorial instructions. If uploading to the production server, use the command:

   twine upload dist/*
   

   If using the test server, use the command:

   python -m twine upload --repository testpypi dist/*
   

6. To install the package, activate the Conda environment (e.g., conda activate me564), and install. If running from the production environment use:

   pip install eeslib
   

   If you have previous versions of eeslib already installed, force use of the most recent version using:

   pip install --force-reinstall --upgrade eeslib
   

Generate Sphinx documentation

After installing the dev prerequisites using pip, you can generate the documentation using the following steps:

1. Navigate to the docs/ directory in bash.

2. Generate the documentation stubs for the modules:

   sphinx-apidoc -o source ../src/eeslib/
   

3. Build the HTML

   make html
   

4. Open the documentation in a browser. The main index file is: docs/build/html/index.html

References

• Engineering Equation Solver (EES)
• CoolProp library for fluid properties
• Heat Transfer by Nellis & Klein, 2007