Normally a new paper means new scientific research, but this month it was great to publish a paper with a more educational focus. My latest paper details pocketTHERM, a web-based education tool suitable for modelling and learning about organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and heat pump systems. The tool runs directly from the web browser and is free for anyone to access and use.

pocketTHERM contains design tools for both ORC and heat pump systems, suitable for carrying out single- and parametric design exercises, alongside self-paced lessons. pocketTHERM enables these technologies to be introduced interactively to students from a wide range of backgrounds, and at different stages of their education, without requiring any programming knowledge or installation of specialist software.

If you want to find out more, want to explore how this could be integrated into the taught engineering cirriculum, or want to help develop it even more then please feel free to get in touch.

A demo of what you can do with the tool is in the video below. And the tool can be accessed from the following link: https://pockettherm.github.io/

Details of the associated journal paper, published in the SoftwareX journal, is available at the bottom of the page.

 

 

Publication details

White, M.T., pocketTHERM: A web-based tool for teaching non-ideal thermodynamic cycles. SoftwareX 2024;27:101806. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2024.101806

Abstract

pocketTHERM is a set of web-based calculators intended to be used as a teaching tool to introduce basic principles related to thermodynamic cycles operating with non-ideal fluid flows, namely organic Rankine cycle (ORC) power systems and heat pumps. The tool enables these technologies to be introduced interactively to students from a wide range of backgrounds, and at different stages of their education, without requiring any programming knowledge or installation of software. pocketTHERM contains design tools for both ORC and heat pump systems, suitable for carrying out single- and parametric design exercises, alongside self-paced lessons. The underlying model is written in Python, and the PyScript framework is used to call the Python code directly from HTML. Alongside detailing pocketTHERM’s capabilities, this paper puts forward a vision of how it can be used in an engineering curriculum, and serves as an example of how existing Python research codes can be converted into web-based educational tools.

Acknowledgement

The author gratefully acknowledges the contribution of Piyathida Suwannakat through her Royal Academy of Engineering Research Internship. The financial support of the Royal Academy of Engineering, United Kingdom is also gratefully acknowledged (Award number: RF\201819\18\23). Finally, the author would like to thank those that took the time to test pocketTHERM and provide valuable feedback during its creation: Salma Salah, Omar Aqel, Hicham Chibli, Pawel Ogrodniczak, Charlie Westfpel, Mark Puttock-Brown.