Thermophysical Functions Page 1 of 2

Contents - Index

Thermophysical Functions
All built-in thermophysical property functions are listed below in alphabetical order. Not all of these functions
are applicable to all substances.

ACENTRICFACTOR
COMPRESSIBILITYFACTOR CONDUCTIVITY
CP CV DEBYE_T
DENSITY DEWPOINT DIPOLE
ELECTRICAL_RESISTIVITY EK_LJ EMISSIVITY
ENTHALPY
ENTHALPY_FORMATION ENTHALPY_FUSION
ENTHALPY_VAPORIZATION ENTROPY
FLUIDTYPE$
FREEZINGPT FUGACITY
HIGHERHEATINGVALUE
HUMRAT INTENERGY INTK
ISENTROPICEXPONENT ISIDEALGAS
ISOTHERMALCOMPRESS
KINEMATICVISCOSITY LINEAREXPCOEF
LOWERHEATINGVALUE
MASSFRACTION MOLARMASS
MOLARMASS_SOLN
NORMALBOILINGPT PHASE$ PRANDTL
PRESSURE P_CRIT POISSONSRATIO
P_SAT QUALITY RELHUM
SIGMA_LJ SOUNDSPEED SPECHEAT
SURFACETENSION TEMPERATURE T_CRIT
THERMALDIFFUSVITY TOTALTHERMALEXP
T_SAT
T_TRIPLE ULTIMATESTRESS
VISCOSITY
VOLUME V_CRIT VOLEXPCOEF
WETBULB YIELDSTRESS
YOUNGSMODULUS

The first argument of all built-in thermophysical property functions is the name of the substance. This
argument is a string that may be provided as a string constant (enclosing quote marks are optional) or a string
variable that contains the name of the fluid. The fluid may be any of the built-in fluids provided with EES, any
of ideal gas fluids provided with the NASA ideal gas data base, or any of the fluids in the Brine fluids or
Incompressible substances libraries. EES also allows User-Supplied Property Data.

Arguments are separated with the list separator character, which is a comma for the U.S. numerical format and
a semicolon for the European numerical format.

It may appear that some substances in the built-in property data base, e.g., N2 and Nitrogen, CO2 and
CarbonDioxide, H2O and Steam (or Water), are duplicated, but this is not true. Whenever a chemical symbol
notation (e.g., N2, CO2, CH4) is used, the substance is modeled as an ideal gas and the enthalpy and entropy
values are based on JANAF table references. The JANAF table reference for enthalpy is based on the
elements having a specific molar enthalpy value of 0 at 298 K (537 R). The entropy of these substances is
based on the Third Law of Thermodynamics. Whenever the substance name is spelled out (e.g., Steam (or
Water), Nitrogen, R12, CarbonDioxide, Methane, etc.) the substance is modeled as a real fluid with subcooled,
saturated, and superheated phases. Exceptions to this rule occur for Air and AirH2O, both of which are
modeled as ideal gases. AirH2O is the notation for air-water vapor mixtures, i.e., psychometrics. Additional

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information concerning the methods, reference states, and ranges of applicability for the thermophysical
properties are provided in the manual.

All arguments in thermophysical property functions, aside from the substance name, are identified by a single
case-insensitive letter followed by an equal sign. Arguments must be separated with commas and may be in
any order, provided that the substance name is first. The value or algebraic expression representing the value
of the argument follows the equal sign. The letters that are recognized in function arguments and their
meaning are:
B= wet-bulb temperature (only for substance AIRH2O)
C=mass concentration in % (only for Brines)
D=dew-point temperature (only for substance AIRH2O)
H=specific enthalpy
P=pressure
Q=quality (only for NH3H2O. Use X for quality for real fluids)
R=relative humidity (only for substance AIRH2O)
S=specific entropy
T=temperature
U=specific internal energy
V=specific volume (=1/density)
W=humidity ratio (only for substance AIRH2O)
X=quality (for real fluids, mass fraction for NH3H2O, otherwise not applicable)

Many of the thermodynamic functions can take alternate sets of arguments. For example, the ENTHALPY
function for steam can be accessed with temperature and pressure as arguments; alternatively, the same
function could be accessed with entropy and quality as arguments. In general, any valid set of arguments can
be supplied for thermodynamic functions.

EES does not require the function argument to have a known value. For example:

h1 = ENTHALPY(Steam,T=T1,P=P1)

will return the value of h1 corresponding to known temperature and pressure, T1 and P1. If, however, the
value of h1 is known, but T1 is unknown, the same equation will return the appropriate value of the
temperature. Alternatively, the temperature could be found by:

T1 = TEMPERATURE(Steam,h=h1,P=P1)

The latter method is preferable in that the iterative calculations implemented for steam are less likely to have
convergence difficulty.

See also:
EES built-in fluid data base
NASA Ideal gas data base

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