Good modeling assumptions make life
easier and don't adversely affect the results, while bad
ones will produce results that diverge wildly from
reality. For example, because liquids are incompressible,
there is little change in the temperature of a working
fluid as it passes through a pump. There is in fact a
little, as some of the energy the pump imparts to the
fluid is converted into heat, but for the most part an
assumption that temperature across the pump remains
constant is a sound one. In contrast, compressing an
ideal gas generally causes a large increase in its
temperature, so assuming that the temperature of the
working fluid remains constant across a compressor would
be a bad idea. The advantage
that you gain from making modeling assumptions is that
you license CyclePad to propagate values. For example,
assuming that a pump is isothermal enables CyclePad to
derive the outlet temperature from its inlet temperature
or vice versa.
Here is a table of the modeling
assumptions you may make in CyclePad. Only a subset of
these assumptions will apply to any given component.
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