Energy Simulation App Explains Added Value of HVAC&R Systems

TLK Energy GmbH, a German consulting firm, is offering a simulation app that can help HVAC&R equipment manufacturers graphically describe a technical benefit such as efficiency cost savings to potential customers.

“Engineers have been using computer simulations for a long time to improve technical systems,” TLK says on its website. “However, most simulations require expensive software and special training.”

By contrast, TLK Energy Apps are “easy-to-use simulation tools” that highlight the performance and benefits of products for the technical sales team, the company adds.

TLK focuses on mobile air conditioning and refrigeration systems, including natural refrigerant systems.

In a blog on its website, TLK explains how it gets from “model development with expert software to an intuitive app with interactive graphics,” which can be customized and designed according to the customer’s guidelines. TLK  presents its product as an alternative to hard-to-read spreadsheets. 

The TLK Energy Apps can be used “to illustrate and calculate system behavior in the field of thermodynamics, energy and process technology.,” the blog says. “Questions can be answered such as, ‘What costs can be saved if the efficiency of my system increases?’

Communicating a technical benefit in complex systems can be “greatly simplified with descriptive graphics,” the blog adds. The apps can be accessed at a customer’s site via laptop, tablet or smartphone.

Understanding thermal systems

To produce the apps, TLK develops simulation models of complex thermodynamic and energy systems using the company’s own model libraries and software, and using programming languages like Python and Modelica, as well as the modeling and simulation environment Dymola.

The simulation models help the company understand the dynamic behavior of thermal systems, how their efficiency can be improved, and how to develop new system topologies. TLK carries out this process using data and feedback from their customers, using these to improve the models and create more precise simulations.

“The development and maintenance of simulation models takes a lot of time and expert knowledge, since complex software is usually used,” the company said on its website.

These complicated operations often limit the use of the models to a small circle of experts. “Even after completion, the provision of models to other development teams, the sales department or even the company’s own customers is not so easy,” TLK stressed. 

“But especially for the exchange with our customers and within the company itself, a fast and simple provision of the model in a user-friendly environment is of great benefit and in some cases even necessary,” the company said about its product.