Dow Fluidfile Calculator

This calculator started life as a complex spreadsheet used by the scientists working for Dow Heat Transfer Fluids. When a potential buyer wanted to know which thermal transfer fluid was optimal for their application they would have to contact the scientists at Dow who would plug into the spreadsheet the parameters for the customer’s application and tell them which thermal fluid would best satisfy their need. Needless to say, this distracted the scientists from doing the important work they do and introduced an unnecessary delay getting the desired information back to the customer. A solution was needed to relieve this information roadblock. Dow Chemical needed a tool they could deliver to their customers that would enable them to get the information they needed, when they needed it. The solution was to create a downloadable Flash application that would do everything the spreadsheet did and could be run on a variety of devices.

I didn’t create the Flash used here. I worked very closely with a Flash developer who designed the interface and event handlers. I harvested the formulas from the Excel spreadsheet, turning them into Javascript (Actionscript) objects. The calculator contains information for calculating a wide array of properties (density, specific heat, thermal conductivity, vapor pressure, viscosity, etc.) for fifteen different products in three categories. Even though many of the products shared properties, the calculations needed to derive those properties were different for each product. A class object was created for each product, all using a common interface. The Flash code could load up the product objects and work with each of them in the same manner. Because the information for each product was designed to be self-contained, new products could be added to the system quickly with no danger of breaking previously added products.

Related Page: Dow Fluidfile Selection Program