Thermal Engineering Systems in Python

TESPy stands for "Thermal Engineering Systems in Python" and provides a powerful simulation toolkit for thermal engineering plants such as power plants, district heating systems or heat pumps. It is an external extension module within the Open Energy Modelling Framework oemof and can be used as a standalone package.

With the TESPy package you are able to calculate stationary operation in order to design the process of thermal energy systems. From that point it is possible to simulate the offdesign behavior of your plant using underlying characteristics for each of the plants components. The package includes basic components, such as turbines, pumps, compressors, heat exchangers, pipes, mixers and splitters as well as some advanced components (derivatives of heat exchangers, drum).

Everybody is welcome to use and/or develop TESPy. Contribution is already possible on a low level by simply fixing typos in TESPy's documentation or rephrasing sections which are unclear. If you want to support us that way please fork the TESPy repository to your own GitHub account and make changes as described in the GitHub guidelines: https://guides.github.com/activities/hello-world/

Key Features

Open Source
Generic thermal engineering applications
Automatic model documentation in LaTeX for high transparency and reproducibility
Extendable framework for the implementation of custom components and component groups
Postprocessing features like exergy analysis and fluid property plotting

docs
tests
package
reference

Documentation

You can find the full documentation at readthedocs. Use the project site of readthedocs to choose the version of the documentation. Go to the download page to download different versions and formats (pdf, html, epub) of the documentation.

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Installing TESPy

If you have a working Python3 environment, use pypi to install the latest tespy version:

pip install tespy

If you want to use the latest features, you might want to install the developer version. See section Developing TESPy for more information. The developer version is not recommended for productive use.

Get in touch

Online "Stammtisch"

We have decided to start a reoccurring "Stammtisch" meeting for all interested TESPy users and (potential) developers. You are invited to join us on every 3rd Monday of a month at 17:00 CE(S)T for a casual get together. The first meeting will be held at June, 20, 2022. The intent of this meeting is to establish a more active and well-connected network of TESPy users and developers.

If you are interested, you can simply join the meeting at https://meet.jit.si/tespy_user_meeting. We are looking forward to seeing you!

User forum

We have implemented a discussion room on GitHub as user forum. If you have issues with setting up your model or any other question about using the software, you are invited to start a discussion there.

Examples

For a short introduction on how TESPy works and how you can use it, we provide an extensive user guide. You can download all python scripts of the examples and tutorials from this GitHub repository. They are included in the "tutorial" directory.

Citation

The scope and functionalities of TESPy have been documented in a paper published in the Journal of Open Source Software with an Open-Access license. Download the paper from https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.02178. As TESPy is a free software, we kindly ask that you add a reference to TESPy if you use the software for your scientific work. Please cite the article with the BibTeX citation below.

BibTeX citation:

@article{Witte2020,
    doi = {10.21105/joss.02178},
    year = {2020},
    publisher = {The Open Journal},
    volume = {5},
    number = {49},
    pages = {2178},
    author = {Francesco Witte and Ilja Tuschy},
    title = {{TESPy}: {T}hermal {E}ngineering {S}ystems in {P}ython},
    journal = {Journal of Open Source Software}
}

Furthermore, a paper on the exergy analysis feature has been published in the mdpi journal energies. You can download the pdf at https://doi.org/10.3390/en15114087. If you are using this feature specifically, you can reference it with the following BibTeX citation:

BibTeX citation:

@article{Witte2022,
    doi = {10.3390/en15114087},
    year = {2022},
    volume = {15},
    number = {11},
    article-number = {4087},
    issn = {1996-1073},
    author = {Witte, Francesco and Hofmann, Mathias and Meier, Julius and Tuschy, Ilja and Tsatsaronis, George},
    title = {Generic and Open-Source Exergy Analysis&mdash;Extending the Simulation Framework TESPy},
    journal = {Energies}
}

Additionally, you have the possibility to cite a specific version of TESPy to make your work reproducible. The source code of every version is published on zenodo. Find your version here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2555866.

License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.