Patent ID: 7822586
Filing Date: 2010-10-26
Classification: G05B,G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of optimizing a thermal management system comprising: providing a system comprising a thermal management system modeling system and a heat exchanger database, the thermal management modeling system connected to the heat exchanger database via a network providing a database interface, a graphical user interface and an optimization module; receiving a set of process parameters for a thermal management system via the graphical user interface, wherein the process parameters comprise one or more heat exchanger parameters that represent the physical and operational characteristics of the heat exchanger, one or more dispense fluid parameters and one or more heating/cooling fluid parameters; accessing the heat exchanger database via the database interface to retrieve one or more additional heat exchanger parameters that represent the physical characteristics of the heat exchanger, wherein the one or more heat exchanger parameters comprise whether the heat exchanger is a counterflow heat exchanger and a heat exchanger size and wherein the one or more additional heat exchanger parameters comprise a number of tubes and a surface area; calculating an inlet temperature of a dispense fluid at an inlet of a the heat exchanger for the thermal management system based on the set of process parameters; calculating an outlet temperature of the dispense fluid at an outlet of the heat exchanger for the thermal management system based on the set of process parameters; determining whether the dispense fluid has reached a dispense temperature by comparing the outlet temperature of the dispense fluid at the outlet of the heat exchanger for the thermal management system to a target temperature; altering one or more process parameters including one or more heat exchanger parameters that represent the physical characteristics of the heat exchanger and repeating the calculating steps utilizing the altered one or more process parameters until the dispense temperature of the dispense fluid has reached the target temperature within a specified time; and outputting through the graphical user interface optimized process parameters comprising optimized heat exchanger parameters representing physical characteristic of an optimal heat exchanger for the thermal management system, optimized dispense fluid parameters and optimized heating/cooling fluid parameters that resulted in the dispense temperature of the dispense fluid reaching the target temperature within the specified time.