Gea AWP’s ValveCalc software is a key tool for fast and accurate design and selection of components in the projects’ planning phase. Gea AWP will soon launch ValveCalc 7.0, enabling the selection and sizing of AWP refrigerant valves for refrigeration plants. The software can calculate the entire project’s requirements, allowing the user to specify the whole plant’s equipment online using ValveCalc.
With ValveCalc, branched safety and overflow blow-off lines can be dimensioned complete with pipes, bends, transitions, and other required components. It provides a design environment for graphical representation and editing of a piping system. By dragging and dropping, essential components such as safety valves, vessels, and pipes can be inserted to build the network structure. Integrated input masks are used to define additionally required data, such as refrigerant, outlet pressure, and the calculation standard to be used.
Gea said, for the new version, the “Safety valve blow-off lines” module has been supplemented by an important new function, “partial blow-off”. The system can be divided into several zones (“fire compartments”), and partial blow-off can then be simulated in these zones. Only the blow-off mass flows from the active zone (fire compartment) are considered.
The project management has been reworked in a user-friendly way. For example, the program directly creates a new, empty project at startup. Processing can be started immediately. The project management and all sub-calculations are displayed clearly, as separate tabs in the main window.
The calculation parameters are displayed in a dynamic, form-based input field layout, which only shows the fields required for the current installation or calculation. Illustrations of the products have been integrated into the components selection for the first time.
The component search has been completely revised and can now be filtered by additional component properties. The user can define both the maximum limiting speed and the maximum pressure drop. The already very extensive program database has been extended to include new refrigerants (R513A, R449A, R449B).
Apart from these innovations, version 7.0 will be the first version of ValveCalc available both as a downloadable and installable program and as a virtual desktop infrastructure in the cloud. The innovative streaming technology used allows ValveCalc to be used via a browser. This eliminates, for example, restrictions imposed by security policies within company networks. ValveCalc is operated on a high-performance infrastructure in a GDPR-compliant, German data center so that users with less powerful computers can also benefit from the program’s high reaction speed, especially useful for resource-intensive processing steps, it said.
