ABOUT F*A*C*T
History of FactSage, the CRCT, etc.F*A*C*T - Facility for the Analysis of
Chemical Thermodynamics - started in 1976 as a joint research
project between two universities, the École Polytechnique (Professors
Christopher W. Bale & Arthur D. Pelton) and McGill University (Professor William T.
Thompson), for treating thermodynamic properties and
calculations in chemical metallurgy. Partial funding for the
project was provided by a Cooperative Grant from NSERC - Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada. Rights and control were assigned to
the company Thermfact Ltd./Lteé.
The initial programs were written in FORTRAN on punched cards
and performed chemical thermodynamic calculations involving pure
substances and ideal gases. In 1979 F*A*C*T On-Line was offered
as an interactive program through the McGill University MUSIC
system accessed via Datapac and Telenet telephone links.
Solution programs and databases were added together with the
POTCOMP and TERNFIG algorithms for optimizing, calculating and
plotting binary and ternary phase diagrams. At this time F*A*C*T
started to incorporate the Gibbs Energy minimizer, SOLGASMIX,
developed by Dr. Gunnar Eriksson, GTT-Technologies.
In 1984, the research centre CRCT
- Centre de Recherche en Calcul Thermochimique / Centre for
Research in Computational Thermochemistry, was founded at
the École
Polytechnique (the engineering faculty of the Université de Montréal) by Professors Arthur
D. Pelton & Christopher W. Bale.
In addition to training engineers and scientists, the mandate of
the CRCT is undertake research and development of thermodynamic
models and data for different types of phases and solutions,
techniques for estimating phase diagrams of multicomponent
sytems, and methods for representing and calculating complex
chemical equilibria. The Centre actively participates in
contractual, grant and applied research projects often in
collaboration with industry, government and university groups
from other countries. Typically there are about 20-30 people
(students, professors, support staff) working in the Centre. A
principal activity of the CRCT is the the promotion and
development of F*A*C*T.
In the 1990's F*A*C*T evolved into PC-based programs. FACT-DOS (1994) offered unlimited access to the software and databases. FACT-Web (1996) provided interactive demonstration modules through the Internet at the CRCT. The Windows® version FACT-Win (1999) offered a fully integrated thermochemical database system that coupled proven software with self-consistent critically assessed thermodynamic data. By this time F*A*C*T had expanded well beyond chemical metallurgy and was being employed in other fields of chemical thermodynamics by pyrometallurgists, hydrometallurgists, chemical engineers, corrosion engineers, inorganic chemists, geochemists, ceramists, electrochemists, environmentalists, etc.
After more than 20 years of collaboration on software
development FactSage® 5.0 was released in 2001. It is a common
product of the F*A*C*T Group (Thermfact Ltd./CRCT, Montreal) and
the ChemSage/ChemApp Group (GTT-Technologies, Germany). It offers in a
Windows® environment of most of the features available in the
FACT-Win 3.05 and ChemSage 4.0 packages. The modules in FactSage
include View Data, View Figure, Compound, Solution, Reaction,
Predom, EpH, Equilib, Phase Diagram, Mixture and Results.
WWW.FactSage.com
is the FactSage home page and provides general information. FactSage Information
lists the FactSage addresses, developers, collaborators, etc.
and FactSage FAQ answers most of
the common questions.
The most recent version, FactSage 8.0, was released in 2020.
FactSage is installed in hundreds of universities, government
laboratories and industrial research centres around the world
where it is used as a research tool and educational aid. While
an understanding of chemical thermodynamics is necessary in
order to run the programs, it is not essential to be an expert
in the field. FactSage is a powerful self-teaching aid. With
regular program usage one can rapidly acquire a practical
understanding of the principles of thermochemistry especially as
these relate to complex phase equilibria. For pricing and
leasing costs please click on FactSage
Purchase.
The FactSage databases are the largest set of
evaluated and optimized thermodynamic databases for inorganic
systems in the world. These databases have been under constant
development since 1990. During the period 2001-2003,
major additions and modifications were made as part of the FACT
Database Consortium Project with funding from the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and 15
industries (Noranda, INCO, Teck Cominco, Rio Tinto, Alcoa,
Shell, Corning, Dupont, Pechiney (now Alcan), St. Gobain
Recherche, Schott Glass, Sintef, Norsk Hydro, Mintek, IIS
Materials). The updated databases were publicly released in 2004
for the first time, so the present databases are much expanded
beyond what was available in the former FS50 FACT databases.
The solution
databases (for solutions of oxides, salts, metals, etc.) have
all been developed by evaluation and "optimization" of data
from the primary literature. Based on proper thermodynamic
models for every phase, all available thermodynamic and phase
equilibrium data for a system are evaluated simultaneously in
order to obtain one set of model equations for the Gibbs
energies of all phases as functions of temperature and
composition. In such an "optimization", all data are rendered
self-consistent, discrepancies in the data can often be
resolved, and the data can be properly interpolated and
extrapolated. In particular, properties of multicomponent
solutions can usually be estimated with good accuracy from the
optimized model parameters of their binary and ternary
sub-systems. The resulting database of model parameters can be
used for calculating phase equilibria and thermodynamic
properties using the FactSage Gibbs energy minimization
software.
FactSage accesses both "solution" databases (.sda or .sdb
files) and "pure compound" databases (.cdb files). The former
contain the optimized parameters for solution phases. The
latter contain the properties of stoichiometric compounds,
either obtained from optimizations or taken from standard
compilations.
Extensive documentation and phase diagrams on each individual database is available at
FactSage Database Documentation
For pricing, leasing and other information about FactSage
Software and databases please contact one of our Representatives.
A CRCT/FactSage Newsletter is published several times per year. To subscribe or view past newsletters go to Newsletter.
