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ThermoPlan Data Product for Experiment Planning

ThermoPlan: Data Product for Experiment Planning

New NIST Data Product for Experiment Planning

A new Web data product, Software Aid for Experiment Planning (ThermoPlan, Standard Reference Database167) was recently released by NIST.

This freely available tool (http://trc.nist.gov/thermoplan/main/home.html) was developed at the Thermodynamics Research Center (TRC) of the MML Thermophysical Properties Division to aid in the process of experimental planning for thermophysical property measurements and is intended for a global community of experimentalists. ThermoPlan provides recommendations for the relative merit of a given measurement via assessment of the existing body of knowledge, including availability of experimental thermophysical property data, variable ranges studied, associated uncertainties, state of prediction methods, and availability of parameters for deployment of prediction methods. This Web application supports utilities for the assessment of specific property measurements for pure and binary chemical systems, the broader data needs of pure systems, and recommendations for binary mixture measurements that could extend the current UNIFAC prediction model.

The algorithmic approach to experiment planning implemented in ThermoPlan is based on technology previously developed at TRC for NIST ThermoData Engine (TDE, Standard ReferenceDatabases 103a and 103b). TDE software represents the first full-scale implementation of the dynamic data evaluation concept for thermophysical properties. This concept requires large electronic databases storing essentially all relevant experimental data known to date with detailed descriptions of metadata and uncertainties. The combination of these electronic databases with expert-system software, designed to automatically generate recommended property values based on available experimental and predicted data, leads to the ability to produce critically evaluated data dynamically or "to order." ThermoPlan is designed and developed, in part, to respond to the increasing need of the scientific and engineering communities for experiment planning in the field of thermophysical property measurement science. It is aimed at increasing the focus of the international thermophysical properties community on measurements, which will make an impact. The tool helps to address the issue, identified by consensus in the community, of limited resources to often applied to redundant or irrelevant measurement problems.

Created March 7, 2012, Updated September 21, 2016