August 25, 2004—Thermal Analysis Partners, a start-up company developing software tools to both integrate and optimize thermal management systems, is the newest firm to enter the Technology Advancement Program, the university’s technology company incubator.
Launched in 2002, Thermal Analysis Partners is eyeing the $200 billion heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) manufacturing industry with software tools that bring together disparate, industry-standard software systems to make thermal management systems more cost-efficient. Thermal Analysis’ software could capture as much as $700 million in the HVAC market, according to company estimates.
HVAC manufacturers and engineers make parts and systems for buildings, automobiles, and airplanes. Designing optimized systems for these different applications is challenging for engineers. One problem is that no single software tool creates an infrastructure for integrating many different design variables and software systems. Thermal Analysis plans to fill that void.
“Five percent of the cost for HVAC system design is in engineering time,” said Hans Huff, system engineer for Thermal Management. “Fifty percent of that time is spent on optimization. Our tools could reduce that time by 30 percent, yielding as much as $1.5 billion in annual savings worldwide.”
The company already has orders from York International Corporation, the largest independent supplier of HVAC equipment in the U.S., as well as a Japanese company and an HVAC research firm. Target customers could also include Carrier, Trane, Behr, Sanyo, and Samsung.
An example of how Thermal Analysis’ software suite will work is in building design. Engineers might employ a software program for the HVAC system, along with a building energy analysis program such as EnergyPlus. “Integrating these programs to see the cost in the building over a year’s time and then finding a design for the HVAC system that keeps costs down and maximizes efficiency and capacity — that’s what our software will do,” said Huff.
The company will release XProps in early March, a software tool enabling engineers to take data from the National Institute for Standards and Technology’s REFPROP, a refrigerant properties software program, and use it in applications such as Microsoft Excel, Matlab, and LabView.
Thermal Analysis has two full-time employees and six part-time consultants.
For more information, contact the Technology Advancement Program (TAP).
