Calculating the Coefficient of Performance for a Heat Pump and Refrigeration Cycle

The information presented in this blog post is for educational purposes only. It should not be used for engineering design or relied upon as engineering advice.

The EngineeringPaper.xyz sheet below calculates the coefficient of performance (COP) for a heat pump and refrigeration cycle. Additionally, the heating capacity, cooling capacity, and required compressor work input are also required. These calculations rely on the thermodynamic fluid property capabilities that have been recently added to EngineeringPaper.xyz using the powerful CoolProp library. Properties including enthalpy, entropy, viscosity, and density are available as functions of state for numerous fluids including humid air (psychrometrics), water/steam, common refrigerants, and glycol solutions. With these changes, EngineeringPaper.xyz is now the easiest way to use the CoolProp library (no installation or coding required). The learn more about this features, see the Thermodynamic Fluid Property tutorial.

The following tutorial video walks through the steps required to set up this calculation in EngineeringPaper.xyz:

Important Note: This sheet relies on features in the latest version of EngineeringPaper.xyz, if you see a green refresh icon in the title bar of the sheet and there are errors in the sheet, you'll need to close all of your open EngineeringPaper.xyz tabs and re-open this page to get the latest version of EngineeringPaper.xyz. You'll know that the upgrade is complete when the green refresh icon disappears.

This coefficient of performance calculator example sheet may also be opened in a separate tab.