As an engineer, I used printed tables from different refrigerants manufacturers as the source for my information. These tables were easy to use for saturation properties if my numbers were whole. But if I had any fractions as real numbers tend to be, then I would spend time interpolating for the correct answer and even then, I always had to recheck them to make sure I did not make a mistake.

Superheated properties were always the difficult part of any calculations I made. On an average it took me 20 minutes to calculate a change in enthalpy across a coil knowing the pressures and temperatures. Several interpolations had to be made to achieve the final answer and even then, I always wondered if I did them right.

Computers have become as common of a tool as calculators. Most engineers write their own software to do repetitive calculations if they have the time and programming knowledge. Manufacturers of refrigerants started to supply programs to give engineers the ability to do these calculations. But almost all the programs that I used took time to get used to, and were difficult to use. I had to use several programs searching for the refrigerant that I wanted.

Microsoft's Windows program became a popular user interface for many tools. One of these tools is RefCycle. As an engineer who needed refrigerant calculations frequently, I once determined that I spend on the average 4 hours a week calculating different conditions for cycle analysis, system design or testing. If we are to assume a labor cost of $10/hr, that would equal to $2080/year, almost 6 times the cost of this program. The problem was not the cost, but the time it took away from my other tasks. Now, it takes me seconds to do these calculations. RefCycle offers a simple user interface and the ability to calculate multiple conditions in Metric and English units.