The 19th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering was held from June 14 till June 17, 2009 in Cracow, Poland. Among the many contributions presented, it is worth noting that three papers were directly related to CAPE-OPEN.

Paper 448: "Adaptation and testing of a data reconciliation software for CAPE-OPEN compliance" by Eric Radermaecker (BelSim SA), Dr Marie-Noëlle Dumont (Université de Liège) and Prof. Georges Heyen (Université de Liège). The paper described the experience made by BelSim SA with the development of a CAPE-OPEN Thermodynamic socket in BELSIM-VALI (BelSim SA is a CO-LaN Associate Member).

Abstract:
The experience gained in the development of a CAPE-OPEN 1.0 thermo socket for the BELSIM-VALI software is presented. VALI is a data validation and reconciliation software that provides consistent mass and energy balances, reliable and accurate Key Performance Indicators and soft sensors. It is not a simulation tool by definition, but rather a powerful equation based system that is used online, to monitor and manage the operations of different processes. VALI has its own thermodynamic database of chemical compounds (> 800 fluids, > 650 solids) and methods. After demands of our clients it was decided to make VALI compliant with other thermodynamic packages via a CAPE-OPEN 1.0 thermo socket. The project was started by learning about the CAPE-OPEN 1.0 standards in terms of requirements and below an outline of our methodology is presented.
After a learning phase, where our software engineers had to learn about the CAPE-OPEN 1.0 standards, and to adapt our code to comply with COM (Component Object Model) technology, we started the development of a Material Object using the C# language. The source code of the VALI physical property modules had to be modified, to call the Material Object components instead of built-in thermodynamic functions (thermo socket).
In the user interface, we had to develop a CAPE-OPEN thermo plugs viewer to allow the selection of a CAPE-OPEN thermo plug from our Graphical User Interface (GUI).
Finally several case studies were analyzed, with performance comparison between the native thermodynamic model, and properties obtained from several CAPE-OPEN thermo plugs. We will particularly analyze here the modeling of a gas liquefaction system and a distillation case study.
These developments were time consuming and especially estimating the time needed for the development was difficult. Testing and Debugging were also rather challenging because all the thermo plugs were not available on the same computer as our source codes. To conclude, VALI has today a CAPE-OPEN 1.0 socket that has been successfully tested on several different CAPE-OPEN 1.0 thermo plugs.

Paper 418: "Dynamic simulation of chemical engineering systems using OpenModelica and CAPE-OPEN" by Carl Sandrock and Professor Philip de Vaal (University of Pretoria, South Africa). This paper describes the first known attempt to implement CAPE-OPEN interfaces in OpenModelica.

Abstract:
Modelica has emerged as a strong contender in the arena of dynamic simulation languages. It was developed to be a standard, with an open specification and a large and usable standard library. OpenModelica is an Open Source implementation of a Modelica compiler and environment which is being developed actively.
Modelica's object-oriented design makes it easy to develop chemical engineering unit operations and connect them to one another. Unfortunately, most proprietary databases of thermodynamic and physical properties and reaction data are not supplied in equation form, but rather as part of closed software. This means that such data must be exchanged with the programs that contain them if they are to be used externally. The CAPE-OPEN specification provides a standard architecture for these exchanges, in addition to support for incorporating new unit operations or algorithms into existing proprietary simulations.
In this study, a Modelica library allowing interface between Modelica and CAPE-OPEN is developed. Its functionality is demonstrated using a model of a ten plate distillation column simulated in OpenModelica on a Linux machine, with thermodynamic and property data from Honeywell Unisim on a Windows machine. The simulation data interfacing is done over a network using CORBA. Physical plant data is also incorporated using OPC.
It is found that real-time operation is possible, but that network overhead makes up a significant fraction of the running time, posing problems for off-line simulation and optimization.

Paper 33: "Multiscale Modelling Framework for Chemical Product-Process Design" by Ricardo Morales-Rodriguez and Prof. Rafiql Gani (Technical University of Denmark). This work belongs to a project by Technical University of Denmark (DTU-CAPEC) that relies on CAPE-OPEN. Previous phase of this project have been described for example during the 4th CAPE-OPEN US Conference.

Abstract:
The design, development and reliability of a chemical product and the process to manufacture it, need to be consistent with the end-use characteristics of the desired product. One of the common ways to match the desired product-process characteristics is through trial and error based experiments which can be expensive and time consuming. An alternative approach is the use of a systematic model-based framework according to an established work-flow in product-process design, replacing some of the time consuming and/or repetitive experimental steps. Furthermore, for many chemical products the appropriate models for product-process design need to have multiscale features as the properties defining the chemical structure and the product end-use characteristics are dependent on parameters of different size and time scales. The advantages of the use of multiscale modelling approach in this case is that in the design, development and/or manufacturing of a product-process, the knowledge of the applied phenomena can be provided at diverse degrees of abstractions and details.
The development of a computer-aided framework for product-process design including a multiscale modelling option is very important for analysis, design, and/or identification of feasible chemical product candidates because it allows one to consider processing issues during the development of the product. The multiscale modelling framework should include the product and process design components, modelling tools and templates (work-flow) for guiding the user through the appropriate design steps. The integration of computational tools is also necessary to increase the application range of the computer-aided product-process framework; where the connection between computational tools could be established through well-defined COM-objects or the CAPE-OPEN standards.
The objective of this paper is to present a novel computer-aided model-based framework for product-process design that also includes multiscale modelling features. To develop this framework, a combination of different computational tools, such as, property prediction packages, modelling tools, simulation engines, solvent selection software, etc, are necessary together with a set of established systematic work-flow and data-flow for various types of design problems. This framework allows the user to cover a wide range of problems at different scales (of length and time) and disciplines of chemical engineering and science in a easy and efficient manner; achieving in this way the development of a product-process with the desired end-use characteristics. Illustrative case studies highlighting the application of the framework will also be presented.