a selection of software that I developed

Software developed by Dudley J. Benton <dudley.benton@gmail.com>

All of the programs below are native Windows® executables. Some come in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Some have an installation and setup.exe inside the ZIP file. The installer will automatically select the files appropriate for your O/S. None of these programs require what Micro$lop would call installation beyond unzip into a folder and run. Some include the source code or an Excel® spreadsheet with VBA macros. Should you decide you no longer want one of these programs, you can uninstall it or simply delete it. I never put anything in the Registry or do any other stupid stuff when installing a program.

If you are downloading for an Excel Add-In, you may find this helpful: how to install and activate an Excel AddIn .

Considerable effort is underway to limit software development to a few big players (e.g., Micro$haft) and exclude small ones (e.g., me). Sadly, this will be the end of free software. Bit Defender, for example, may prevent you from launching some of my software because I have not paid Bill Gates to become a "trusted provider" and I'm not going to. [I'll let you in on a secret: I don't trust him either.]

Here's a link to the Sample Code for six fully-functional Windows® programs of a general nature. If you're interested in 3D rendering in Windows®, here's a link to over fifty examples that illustrate how to do this 3D Rendering plus more details on 3D Controls. Some use OpenGL® and some don't. I recently updated the 3DS viewer to handle GIF and JPG textures plus added a model of Stonehenge. The examples accompanying my recent books, 3D Models in Motion and 3D Articulation are available here: 3Dmotion.zip and 3Darticulation.zip Here are links to the examples that go along with my other books, Algebra, Azeotropes, Boilers, CFD, Complex Variables, Compression, Computer Simulation, Contaminant Transport, CPUnleashed, Curve-Fitting, Cycles, Differential Equations, Evaporative Cooling, Fluid Properties, Forecasting, Heat Exchangers, Heat Recovery Steam Generators, HTexamples, Living Math, Mass Transfer, Monte Carlo, Nonlinear_Equations, Numerical Calculus, Orthogonal Functions, Particle Tracking, Performance Curves, Plumes, Props, Reactions, Recipes, Thermodynamics, and Weather Data. On 3/25/21 I added the minivan and airfoil to nast2d in the CFD archive.

Note: The eBooks are available free on certain days, as listed here: https://djamesbenton.altervista.org/index.html

Compatibility: These programs will run on any version of Windows®, including: 95, 98, ME, NT, 2K, XP, Vista, W7, W8, W9, W10, and W11. No service pack or particular version of Internet Explorer is needed, nor are there any OCXs or DLLs used, besides the basic ones that are part of the O/S [kerne32.dll, gdi32.dll, comdlg32.dll, and comctl32.dll.] More importantly, these are all native Windows® executables so that the vile .Net framework is not necessary.

CREST solves chemical equilibria. [If you don't know what this means, then you don't need it. see: Thermochemical Reactions] CREST will calculate how much of which product will form, including disassociation reactions. CREST uses a variant of the RAND algorithm to solve the Gibbs free energy minimization problem (which is nonlinear) subject to the elemental abundance constraints (which are linear). This is basically a Newton iteration with Lagrange multipliers. CREST618a.zip The unique thing about CREST is that it can handle non-ideal behavior (i.e., fugacities much different from 1). When the fugacity is not 1 the RAND algorithm is unstable, as the matrix is degenerate, but I discovered a way to stabilize the matrix for 0.01≤ƒ≤100, which I discuss in my book Thermochemical Reactions.

CurveFit will do y(x)=p0+p1*x+p2*x^2... or y(x)=p(x)/q(x), which is much more flexible, and also f(w,x,y,z)=... for up to 9 variables. CurveFit displays the agreement between data and regression in a graph and also creates a function that you can paste into and use in your own code. You can select from C, Fortran, or BASIC formats. The latter will go right into Excel® and are ready to use. CurveFit522a.zip See my book, Curve-Fitting, for more details.

CyclePro is a completely new tool under development, which will eventually become open source https://cyclepro.altervista.org/ If you are interested in the development of this open source code, please contact me. I'm looking for some platform that doesn't presume everyone in the world is running LINUX or insist that every program be split into a thousand tiny files and spread across a hundred folders [i.e., what you see on GitHub and Office Libre].

Demand creates cooling tower demand curves (i.e., KaV/L vs. L/G) using Merkel, Exact, and CrossFlow calculations. Refer to CTI paper TP91-02, "A More Nearly Exact Representation of Cooling Tower Theory," for details. The graphs and data can be exported to the clipboard. The program will also plot fill test data (i.e., a "supply" curve) along with the 95% confidence interval. 24 fill data sets from the EPRI project are included in the package. DEMAND403a.zip See my book, Evaporative Cooling, for more details.

Digitize lets you digitize graphs, maps, and other data with your mouse. It can load BMP, GIF, and JPG images and will automatically load an image if there's one already on the clipboard. You can save the results to a file or just paste them into Excel®, as the digitized results are automatically copied to the clipboard when the program exits. If your figure has the original 16 Windows colors, you can also automatically digitize all of the points in that color (or colors) with a single keystroke (see help file for details). Digitize218.zip

Equations of State: This program will display several dimensionless plots, including: compressibility vs. pressure, pressure vs. volume, temperature vs. volume, fugacity coefficient vs. pressure, residual enthalpy vs. pressure, residual entropy vs. pressure, pressure vs. enthalpy (i.e., a P-H Chart), temperature vs. entropy (i.e., a T-S Chart), and enthalpy vs. entropy (i.e., a Mollier Diagram). Several different equations of state are available, including: van der Waals, Berthelot, Boltzmann, Dieterici, Clausius, Redlich-Kwong, RKS, and Peng-Robinson. EOSPLT335a.zip Three sets of steam properties are also available, including: Keenan, Keyes, Hill, and Moore (1969), NBS(NIST)/NRC (1984), and IAPWS-SF95. At some point I will add real substances plus a property calculator as well as viscosity and thermal conductivity. See my book, Thermodynamic and Transport Properties of Fluids, for more details.

More equations of state... I have also created an Excel Add-In for the thermodynamic properties of NOVEC-649. The original formulation by McLinden, Perkins, Lemmon, and Fortin is available here: NOVEC649a.zip There are some problems with the enthalpy and entropy, especially of the compressed liquid and superheated vapor regions, with the original version. A revised formulation based on the BWR32 EOS (which eliminates these anomalies) is available here: BWREOS111.zip. Properties of steam and other refrigerants are farther down in this page. See above for how to install an Excel AddIn.

Extended-Precision Floating-Point: I first began working on this problem in 1982. At the time, all I had to work with was an HP-1000 minicomputer the size of a refrigerator. I developed all of the necessary functions in assembler so that they could be called from FORTRAN. I updated these to Intel® assembler in 1992, as I had a need once more for extended-precision. I have since translated them into C and added a C++ class wrapper so that you can easily utilize them with very little program modifications. Everything you need—including source code and examples—is in the Numerical Calculus archive listed above and also described in the book, Numerical Calculus also see this book CPUnleashed!.

FACTS: This is my cooling tower analysis program. It comes with several input files and an Excel® spreadsheet containing coefficients for several common fills. FACTS now has a rudimentary GUI but will still run in batch mode (drop one of the sample INP files onto the EXE) FACTS912i.zip I have recently added the feature of drawing the tower and labeling the dimensions. Please feel free to make suggestions as I continue to develop the user interface. See my book, Evaporative Cooling, for more details.

Gauss Quadrature: This is a little C source code for a program that will calculate the weights and abscissas for any order of Gauss Quadrature and will even create a function that you can use. GaussQuadrature.zip See my book, Numerical Calculus, for more details. The book also describes extended precision weights and abscissas for very high order.

Knight's Tour: The knight's tour is when the knight, alone on the chessboard, makes 64 moves, landing on each square once and only once. There are several solutions to this problem. The simple algorithm I use finds different solutions depending on which square you start on. This is available in three different packages: 1) a tiny program (only 1665 bytes), written entirely in assembler knights_tour_16bit.zip, 2) a somewhat larger program, written in C knights_tour_inC.zip and 3) a 3D version, also written in C, knights_tour_in_3D.zip, which lets you select the color of wood for the pieces and the color of stones for the board. The 16 bit version will only run on the 16-bit O/S (DOS®) or 32-bit O/S (Windows®), the 32-bit version will run on the 32- or 64-bit O/S (Windows®), and the 3D version will also run on the 32- or 64-bit O/S (Windows®). The source code for all three are included. You can run the 16-bit version in a command prompt on any 32-bit version of Windows®. If you want to run it on a 64-bit version of Windows® you would need to launch a virtual box and run it there. The only reason for keeping the 16-bit version is to show that such a problem can be solved with an executable of less than 2kB. More details here> knight's_tour

Mathematical functions for Excel®: This is an Excel® Add-In that includes random numbers, interpolation (linear 1D and 2D, nonlinear, and cubic spline), simultaneous equations, linear least-squares, and linear least-squares with linear constraints. mathadin101a.zip This last function (LLSQLC) can be used to fit a curve with an exact match at one or more points. See above for how to install an Excel AddIn.

NASA Glenn Properties for Excel®: This is an Excel® Add-In that gives you the properties (MW, Hf, Cp, S, H) as function calls for 2035 substances, plus any mixture of these same substances. It comes with the NASA report TP-2002-211556, a spreadsheet illustrating how to use the functions, and an installer. The installer puts the Add-In in the correct folder (you must enable it from inside Excel®) and a link on the desktop to the report. NASAGlenn100.zip See my book, Thermodynamic and Transport Properties of Fluids, for more details. See above for how to install an Excel Addin.

Numerical Integration: This is a little C source code that contains just about every method for numerical integration that's ever been developed. Take your pick. Some are better than others. It also contains a function to integrate from zero to infinity plus 2D and 3D integration, in case you've never seen those before. I recently changed to the fine resolution Windows timer for more precise timing comparisons. NumericalIntegration.zip See my book, Numerical Calculus, for more details.

PFLOW: This is a little program that solves the potential flow field for any arbitrary boundary (for example, a lake with multiple inlets and exits) with or without inclusions (for example, islands) using the Boundary Element method. Most BEM codes use numerical integration, but this one uses the closed-form solution, which I describe in my book, Differential Equations. Several examples are included, along with GIFs of the results. TP2 (see below) will readily display the results. PFLOW220.ZIP

PolyEdit is a polygon editor. You could do many of the same things with AutoCAD if you had all the time in the world, but PolyEdit lets you do things like shrink/grow, smooth, split, join, and reverse with a single keystroke. PolyEdit has buttons to add common shapes that are found on a power plant heat balance, as this is what I most often use it for. PolyEdit137.zip

Psychrometrics: This archive contains the thermodynamic properties of moist air as Excel® macros and C code. Two versions are included: 1977 and 1993, each based on the tables of values in the ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals published that year. Be aware that there are errors in the literature surrounding the properties of moist air, including formally published errata which corrected some errors but introduced new errors. The tabulated values are based on the work of Hyland & Wexlar, who worked for the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), which has been renamed the National Institute of Standards and Testing (NIST). Note that the values in the ASHRAE tables are correct but the formulas may not be. You can easily check this by using the formulas in the text to calculate a few values of Ws and Ps and see if these match the values in the tables. The NBS lost H&W's original documents; however, there was a copy in the archives of the Library of Congress (LoC). Many years ago a colleague, Al Feltzin, went to the LoC and made a photocopy of the original documents. As it turned out, H&W's work matches the tables, not the equations. So be careful. Psychrometrics100.zip See my book, Evaporative Cooling, for more details. See above for how to install an Excel AddIn.

PTRAX: This is a 2D/3D particle tracker I developed for contaminant transport in groundwater, but have used for several other unrelated things as well, including simulation of dye dilution flow measurement into multiple pumps. It comes with several examples, some contrived and some real-word applications. There's a little batch file for each example that will help illustrate how to launch the program, or you can use the menu and help file. PTRAX502a.zip See my book, Particle Tracking, for more details. The zip file contains the 32-bit executables. These will also run on a 64-bit O/S. Only if you run out of memory, I can send you the 64-bit executables.

QRgrid: Quadrangular grid generator, details and examples here> grid generation

QUEST: This is a quick and simple steam power cycle program that handles conventional plant designs (ones that have a coal, oil, gas, or biomass fired boiler, steam turbine(s), feedwater heater(s), and a condenser). It does not handle combined cycle plant designs (ones that have one or more gas turbines and a heat recovery steam generator). It uses the method described by Spencer, Cotton, and Cannon in the paper entitled, "A Method for Predicting the Performance of Steam Turbine-Generators 16,500 kW and Larger." It comes with 27 examples based on actual plant designs. The user guide includes about 50 actual plant heat balances from operational plants around the U.S. QUEST is easy to use and will compute individual cases as well as several automated series of cases used to create the standard correction curves provided by G.E. for such plants. QUEST provides a good introduction to more complicated programs for advanced thermodynamic cycle modeling, such as GateCycle, PEPSE, ThermoFlow, and CyclePro... and it's also free. The others are very expensive. QUEST currently comes in two versions: command line interactive (Win32 console app) QUEST200a.ZIP and rudimentary Windows QUEST211a.zip See my book, Thermodynamic Cycles, for more details.

Refrigerant Properties AddIn for Excel This includes the following fluids: R11, R12, R13, R13b1, R14, R21, R22, R23, R31, R40, R50, R113, R114, R115, R134a, R142b, R152a, R170, R290, R500, R502, R503, R504, R505, R506, R600, R600a, R702, R704, R717, R718, R720, R728, R729, R732, R740, R744, R1150, and R1270. Functions include: Psat, Tsat, Vf, Vg, Hf, Hg, Sf, Sg, PofTV, VofTP, HofTV, HofTP, SofTV, SofTP, TofPH, TofPS, ZofTP, and ZofTV. For NOVEC-649 see above. I have recently added specific heat (Cp and Cv), viscosity (dynamic and kinematic), and thermal conductivity. Refrig100a.zip See above for how to install an Excel AddIn.

SpinCube: The SpinCube screen saver came with one of the earliest Windows® Software Developer Kits. The problem is, it didn't work correctly, it would only read BMP files, and it was very poorly written. I have completely re-written it and added the GIF and JPG formats. I have included my favorite pictures, including the Mac Dude and Microsoft® Bloatware Man, which was inspired by Steve Balmer. SpinCube100.zip

Steam Properties: There are six available formulations for the thermodynamic properties of steam. These include: ASME'67, KKHM'69, NBS/NRC'84, IAPWS-SF95, IAPWS-IF97, and 2020. These can be accessed with function calls in any spreadsheet with an Excel AddIn. There are several commercial products providing similar functionality and I do no want to short-circuit these efforts; therefore, I make this available for academic use only, so please be sensitive in that regard. Steam105.zip The installer will automatically select the appropriate version (32-bit or 64-bit) for your system. The 2020 formulation with extended range up to 6000K and 150GPa is now included. Details can be found here> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086TYQMFM See above for how to install an Excel AddIn.

TP2 is a free tool similar to TECPLOT, but can plot many more types of files. TP2 recognizes 28 different 2D, 3D, and even 4D files and comes with lots of examples, including topography, velocity vectors, a klein bottle, and Yoda's head, which you can rotate using the directional keys on the number pad. TP2 can also read simple FORTRAN and C code and apply this to data. There are also a few examples showing how to define 3D shapes using code that is interpreted on the fly. TP2_610.zip also see TP2 examples here

View3D will display 3D models. Besides the built-in demos, I have included four detailed SiFi spaceship models plus several other objects, including a backhoe and truck. I have recently added the importation of AutoCAD 3D Studio files. View3D120a.zip See my book, 3D Rendering in Windows, for more details.

more to come... I will eventually include more things. If you need something in particular, Email me dudley.benton@gmail.com. Who knows? I may already have it. I provide a lot of material to researchers in developing countries, so check out ResearchGate.