January 25, 1999

ChemicaLogic releases SteamTab Quad™ to help users transition from the old steam formulations to the new IAPWS standards

Woburn, Massachusetts, U.S.A. -- January 25, 1999 -- ChemicaLogic Corporation today announced the release of SteamTab Quad Version 3.0 containing 4 sets of universally recognized formulations for calculating the properties of water and steam. These formulations include:

Two sets of scientific formulations – the new IAPWS-95 and the older NBS/NRC-84, and
Two sets of industrial formulations – the current IAPWS-IF97 and the obsolete IFC-67.

"Less than a month ago, we released new versions of SteamTab products - SteamTab V3.0 and SteamTab Duo V3.0 (press release). These new releases incorporate new formulations published by the International Association for Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS)," said Mr. Gordon C. Cheng, President of ChemicaLogic Corporation. Commenting further on the background of this release, he said, "since then, we have received a number of requests from SteamTab users for a single package containing both the new and the old formulations. We responded to this demand by a fast-track release of SteamTab Quad V3.0, which contains all 4 sets of formulations:

IAPWS-95 (For scientific and general use)
IAPS/NBS/NRC-84(For scientific and general use)
IAPWS-IF97 (For Industrial use)
IFC-67 (For Industrial use)

These formulations are efficiently packaged to take less than 1 MB of disk space under the same familiar user-friendly SteamTab dialog box and selectable at a click of the mouse button."

As one power plant manager put it: "We have evaluated our plant performance with SteamTab Duo in a spreadsheet for a couple of years now. Given the capabilities in computing, formatting, plotting and data exchange, we use spreadsheets for both technical and business purposes. And SteamTab Duo provides us with both the scientific formulation and the industrial formulation that we need for all of our steam engineering work. The scientific formulation (NBS/NRC-84) was used in optimizing the technical performance of the plant and the industrial formulation (IFC-67) for assessing contractual consequences. During this transition, we probably need to evaluate our plant performance with at least 3 sets of formulations. We’ll probably use the IAPWS-95 as the new basis for optimizing the technical performance, continue to use the old IFC-67 for transaction purposes with customers whose contracts are still based on that, and use the new IAWPS-IF97 with customers whose contract is being shifted to the new formulation. And we want to do all that without switching programs."

Manufacturers of steam equipment have historically used "fudge factors" to compensate for differences between calculated and measured performance of steam systems. A portion of the difference is attributed to the deviations of steam property formulations from real properties. With the recommended change of contractual basis (from IFC-76 to the new IAPWS-IF97), equipment manufacturers will save significant amount of effort by using SteamTab Quad. SteamTab Quad can make easier the tedious task of:

Validating the design/rating programs with both sets of new formulations (scientific and industrial) to determine the equipment performance on the technical and contractual basis, and
Comparing the results against the previous standard (IFC-67) in order to upgrade the "fudge factors".

According to Riju Saini, Ph.D., Chief Architect of the SteamTab products, all of the formulations used in the SteamTab family are written in C++, based on fundamental equations published by original authors. The IAPWS-IF97 formulation was especially tedious, given the huge number of coefficients that had to be input, and verified. The SteamTab implementation of the IAPWS-95 scientific formulation is tuned for fast iterative calculations by way of a proprietary scheme to avoid performing repetitive calculations and is significantly faster than the other published codes.

"During the developmental stage of our Version 3.0 products", Dr. Saini asserts that "we validated each and every value computed by SteamTab, to 10 significant figures, against a set of benchmarks released by IAPWS. The accuracy of SteamTab goes far beyond what can be checked against the printed versions of Steam Tables. In addition," Dr. Saini explains, "the formulations were also tested for convergence robustness across the entire region of applicability by using SteamTab to draw the pressure-enthalpy diagram (Mollier Chart). For those of you who are interested in finding out how the pressure-enthalpy diagram was generated, an Excel spreadsheet containing the data and chart, as well as a Mollier Chart in PDF format without underlying data, is available for download form our web site."

SteamTab Quad V3.0 is available immediately, along with SteamTab Duo V3.0 and SteamTab V3.0 for all 32-bit applications of Microsoft Excel (Excel 95/97/2000/XP) and Lotus 1-2-3 (1-2-3 Release 7/97/Millennium Edition). For free demonstration versions of the SteamTab Quad V3.0 (with a truncated operating range) and ordering information please visit our website at http://www.chemicalogic.com/steamtab/quad/

An upgrade privilege (a 40% discount from the list price) is accorded to all current SteamTab and SteamTab Duo users who wish to obtain a license for SteamTab Quad V3.0.

About ChemicaLogic

Since 1995, ChemicaLogic Corporation, a technical and management consulting firm, has been serving the worldwide chemical and allied industries. We fully integrate technical expertise, business knowledge, management experience and computer skills to provide you with a unique resources for problem solving.

ChemicaLogic also develops custom software tools. Our products are benefiting industry leaders in power plants, utilities, chemical manufacturers, engineering firms, and universities. Please inquire with us how these tools might be helpful in improving your productivity.

Contact

Please contact Gordon C. Cheng, ChemicaLogic Corporation, 99 South Bedford Street, Suite 207, Burlington, MA 01803 USA, Tel: (781) 938-1151, gcheng@chemicalogic.com with questions about this press release.

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ChemicaLogic™ is a trademark of ChemicaLogic Corporation.
SteamTab™ is a trademark of ChemicaLogic Corporation.
SteamTab Quad™ is a trademark of ChemicaLogic Corporation.
Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.