An Educational Laboratory Virtual EES for Encouraging the Use of Computer Programming in Thermal Engineering Problems

General computational software systems (such as Mathcad, Matlab, Techplot, LabView, Fluent, EES (Engineering Equation Solver), and Mathematica) with great flexibility are available for use on personal computers. This paper examines the application of one of these systems, EES, to a number of preliminary thermal sciences calculations, being a generalized EES. This software is a powerful equation solver with built-in functions and property tables for thermodynamics and transport properties as well as automatic unit checking capability. Application examples include close system of mix adiabatic of ideals gases and simple and generalized counter-flow cooling tower system. This program has demonstrated to be a useful tool that offers great flexibility and generality as well as congruence with problem formulation. (c) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 21: 691-697, 2013