The ExternalMedia library provides a framework for interfacing external codes computing fluid properties to Modelica.Media-compatible component models.

The current downloads can be found here:

• Precompiled Modelica library
• Manual as PDF
• Full source code

The ExternalMedia library provides a framework for interfacing external codes computing fluid properties to Modelica.Media-compatible component models. It is compatible with Modelica Standard Library (MSL) 3.2.3, which is the latest, backwards-compatible version of the 3.2.x series. A version compatible with MSL 4.0.0 is planned for the near future.

The current version of the library supports pure and pseudo-pure fluids models, possibly two-phase, compliant with the Modelica.Media.Interfaces.PartialTwoPhaseMedium interface. Please have a look at the dedicated introduction section for an in-depth description of the architecture.

The current release of the library (3.3.0) includes a pre-compiled interface to the FluidProp software and built-in access to CoolProp. If you use the FluidProp software, you need to have the proper licenses to access the media of your interest and to compute the property derivatives. The library works with FluidProp version 3.0 and later. It might work with previous versions of that software, but compatibility is no longer guaranteed. Please refer to the chapter on FluidProp and the dedicated chapter on CoolProp for details.

The released files are tested with Dymola and OpenModelica on Windows as well as with Dymola on Linux. Support for more tools and operating systems might be added in the future, please let us know if you want to contribute.

You can modify the library to add an interface to your own solver. If your solver is open-source, please contact the developers, so we can add it to the official ExternalMedia library.

The provided version of ExternalMedia is compatible with Modelica Standard Library 3.2.3, we recommend you to use that instead of previous 3.2.x versions, because it contains many bug fixes and is fully backwards compatible with them.

If you want to experiment with the code and recompile the libraries, check the compilation instructions.

The Modelica Language Specification mentions annotations for External Libraries and Include Files in section 12.9.4. Following the concepts put forward there, the ExternalMedia package provides several pre-compiled static libraries supporting a selection of operating systems, C-compilers and Modelica tools.

Please open the package.mo file inside the ExternalMedia 3.3.0 folder to load the library. If your Modelica tool is able to find a matching precompiled binary for your configuration, you should now be able to run the examples.

If your Modelica tool cannot find the provided binaries or if you use an unsupported compiler, you can build the ExternalMedia files yourself. All you need to compile ExternalMedia, besides your C/C++ compiler, is the CMake software by Kitware. If you would like to include the CoolProp library, you also need a working Python installation.

Please consult compilation guide for further instructions and details on how to compile ExternalMedia for different Modelica tools and operating systems.

This Modelica package is free software and the use is completely at your own risk; it can be redistributed and/or modified under the terms of the BSD 3-clause license.

ExternalMedia has been around since 2006 and many different people have controbuted to it. The history page provides a lot of useful insights and explains how the software became what it is today.

Current main developers:

• Francesco Casella
• Jorrit Wronski and Ian Bell for the integration of CoolProp in the library and CMake-based compilation

Please report problems using GitHub issues.