Refrigeration Design Software

In this article, we are going to look at refrigeration design software. This article is for HVACR engineers and mechanical engineering students. We will see how to use it with examples for thermostatic expansion valves, compressors and cold rooms.

Scroll down for YouTube video tutorial

We are going to take a look at a very useful and free refrigeration design software, which I am going to recommend, called Coolselector®2 from Danfoss, who kindly sponsored this article. You can download it free of charge from the Danfoss website. Just click the link below.

🎁 Download Coolselector®2 for free here ➡️ Click here

I can also recommend that you check out the in-depth training video series for this software that Danfoss has created on their channel called Coolselector StartUp School. I could even recognize the voice in the training videos because it's my own. Click here for that.

When we open this software, we instantly see a wide variety of refrigeration components to choose from under the valves and line components tab.

Then on the left hand side we have a number of other tabs which if we scroll down give us options for different types of refrigeration systems, we have a cold room calculator, station layout evaporator, compressors, condensers, controls and even sensors and switches. Danfoss engineers are constantly adding new features.

Now let's go through some quick examples of how useful this software is and why I recommend it and show you.

Thermostatic expansion valve example

Let's say we want to select a thermostatic expansion valve for our system. In the valves and line components tab, we select the valve from the component options. We get a small diagram of the system and below we can select our refrigerant (example R448A) then on the right we enter our operating conditions. Let's just say a 2.5 kW capacity and I'll leave the other inputs default as this is a quick step.

By the way, you can simply change the displayed units by simply clicking on the options, then on the units and selecting the one you need.

Then we can select the product line in the lower left corner. I will select a T2 model for this example and when I do so the screen will refresh and the software will automatically recommend a product. We can see how it will behave with the different charts and graphs. If we go down to the Performance Details tab, the software will give us all the calculated values of pressure, temperature, enthalpy and entropy for the system.

Once we have chosen a product we can simply click the report button at the top and it will generate a full project report with all the details we need, we can simply print it out, save as pdf or export it. Super easy to use.

As I mentioned, there are a series of detailed videos on how to use this software for all kinds of scenarios. I personally made the training videos and they are hosted on the Danfoss YouTube channel. Link for that here

If you want to know how thermostatic expansion valves work, you can see our FREE COURSE here

Cold Room Calculator Example

Let's see a cold room. We click on commercial applications and then on cold rooms. We can then enter the details manually or we can use the wizard. I'll use the wizard as it will do the job for me.

We enter the dimensions and conditions of our cold room. I'll leave them as default for this example. (For a detailed tutorial on cold room design, click here.) Then we tell you what we stock in the cold room, lots of options for that. It must then know the temperature and the mass of the products that we introduce. We then tell you the room conditions and hours of operation, as well as the type of insulation we use.

It will then load this into a graphics screen where we can review our inputs and add additional data such as air infiltration, additional heat loads, and defrost information.

We click on next and we choose the place of installation, then the product line and also the refrigerant.

It will then show us the details of the cooling load for each source and the total cooling capacity required. By the way, we can export these details by right clicking on the table and clicking export to excel.

Once we are happy with the details we can click Next and a table will load showing all the recommended products we need for this system. Danfoss do not supply current evaporators, but they will provide all the information you need to provide to your supplier to obtain one.

Of course we can again get a full report on our project using the report button at the top and we can get a BOM using the BOM button which we can then provide to our supplier Danfoss for a quote.

Compressor Selection Example

Ok, let's take a quick look at how we select a compressor for our refrigeration system.

Therefore, we click on the tab for compressors and condensing units and then select the compressors. The screen loads and there is a lot of information, but we start on the left and first choose the application we need. We're only going to go for a medium heat app for one food holding unit, so I'm going to uncheck the others. Then we choose our refrigerant, I will go for R404A and I will choose a 415V 3 phase power supply to power the compressor. So for this example I'm just going to use a fixed speed reciprocating compressor.

We now enter our operating conditions. This is really important, so please spend some time here, but I'll quickly show you an example using some sample inputs. See the video below for more details.

Now the software has automatically recommended which product to choose. In the Performance Details tab, we can find a lot of information to understand how it will work and check if it applies to our system. These charts can be quickly converted to tables by simply clicking the radio button above the chart. We can then export this data by right clicking on it and selecting Export Data.

Again, we can see the calculated values of pressure, temperature, enthalpy and entropy in the performance details tab, we get a schematic and our pressure enthalpy graph. We can aggregate all of this information into a professional looking report by clicking the report button at the top.

software advice

What else can we do with this? We can make the app faster to use. We can do this by accessing the options, then the preferences, then selecting the sector in which we work. Suppose I click on industrial, it will hide all the products and features that are not useful to me. We can also create a custom preference from the editing preferences and we can select or deselect things like connection types and accessories, systems, etc.

We can add our name to the defaults so it automatically appears on reports and BOMs. We do this in options, user language and country.

We can see very quickly which products are suitable or approved for different types of refrigerants. We can do this by clicking on the tools and then on the overview of products and refrigerants. The popup window will give us a table of color codes for each one. At the bottom we also have the option to export this information.

We can see the different refrigerant graphs by clicking on the tools and then clicking on the log pressure enthalpy diagrams. The popup window allows us to choose the refrigerant we want to check. We can export these charts using the buttons at the top.

JAMJOOM COIL

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Refrigeration Design Software

Thermostatic expansion valve example

Cold Room Calculator Example

Compressor Selection Example

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