Version 1.0
Initially released on April 2002.  Polished version released on November 2003  .

Important notice: After initial versions were published in 2002, several among these documents were reworked, mainly for cosmetic reasons. We give access to these polished versions, developed by CO-LaN in 2003, which are now official after their approval by CO-LaN's Board of Directors. If you have any comment about these documents, please use the contact point shown at the bottom of all pages.

  Synthesis report (293 KB)

A good starting point providing an overview of the CAPE-OPEN standard. Relates mostly to the initial CAPE-OPEN project: its technical achievements are presented.
Unchanged from versions 0.9 and 0.9.3

  Road map (125 KB)

Aimed at the user of the CO standard. Gives guidance on what other documents s(he) should consult. Draws the attention of different categories of users on how CO standard would be valuable for them and how they could exploit the standard further.
Unchanged from versions 0.9 and 0.9.3

  Conceptual document (352 KB)

The key document for Conceptual Design of CAPE-OPEN interface specification. Describes the priorities expressed by the initial partners and key decisions made including new innovative concepts. Acts as a reminder for the continuing work within the CO-LaN and for the wider CAPE technical community.
Unchanged from versions 0.9 and 0.9.3

  Integrated guidelines (736 KB)

Gathers a number of architectural and technical issues in order to offer to the CO interface designers and CO compliant components developers all the generic information needed. Acts as reference material for further developing and implementing interfaces specific to the process simulation domain. Gives the selection of the methods and software tools for the CO standard. Main recommendations include: apply the object-oriented paradigm, take advantage of the distributed software component based approach, use the UML notation and the middleware technology. Several documents put together in one for 2003 release.

  Migration methodology handbook (108 KB)

Gives a strategy and technical advices on migration of legacy systems and software towards CO compliance and component based architecture. Reports on several examples implemented as proofs of concept for the proposed migration strategy.

  Integration report (423 KB)

Presents the validation program essential to demonstrate that CAPE-OPEN is a workable standard. This program achieves two primary objectives: first verify that the defined interfaces are capable of transmitting all the information necessary to perform a correct simulation, secondly verify that the standard interfaces are unambiguously defined and evolutive.

  Path recommendations (361 KB)

Explores conceptual and technical research issues related to process simulation and the use of software components. A prototypical simulation environment is described to demonstrate the ideas. Integration with various CO compliant prototypes is discussed.

  Thermodynamics and Physical Properties (241 KB)

CAPE-OPEN focuses on uniform fluids that are mixtures of pure components or pseudo-components, and whose quality can be described in terms of molar composition. The physical properties operations that have been provided with standardised interfaces are those required for the calculation of vapour-liquid or liquid-solid equilibria or subsets thereof, as well as other commonly used thermodynamic and transport properties. A key concept is that of a Material Object. Typically, each distinct material appearing in a process (in streams flowing between unit operations, as well as within individual unit operations) is characterised by one such object. To support the implementation of the above framework, the CO standard defines interfaces for Material Objects, as well as for thermodynamic property packages, calculation routines and equilibrium servers.
Changes in this version: documents available under version 0.93 have been merged. This interface has been extensively tested.

  Physical Properties Data Bases (667 KB)

Physical Properties Data Bases (PPDB) interfaces define a CAPE-OPEN compliant standard interface for connecting a data base with recorded physical property values and model parameters to flowsheeting and other engineering programs. This interface deals with measured, correlated or estimated values of physical property data at discrete values of the variables of state (temperature, pressure, composition).
Changes in this version: Did not exist previously. Needs to be thoroughly tested.

 Petroleum Fractions (255 KB)

Petroleum Fractions (PetroFrac) interfaces extend the standard Material Object for use in the modelling of hydrocarbon fluids processed in refining, petrochemicals and offshore production facilities. They supply additional access to petroleum-specific properties (e.g. RON, MON, cetane index, TBP curves, etc.), and allow characterising parameters of the mixtures. They also introduce a small change in the Unit Operation interfaces in order to distinguish Unit Operations handling petroleum fractions from others.
Changes in this version: Did not exist previously. Needs to be thoroughly tested.

  Chemical Reactions/Electrolytes (511 KB)

Chemical Reactions/Electrolytes interfaces support the management and processing of kinetic, equilibrium and electrolytes reaction systems in process models. These interfaces support any reaction model, they are clients to formulate reaction equations, and they support reaction model parameter estimation.
Changes in this version: Did not exist previously. Needs to be thoroughly tested.

 Unit Operations (419 KB)

CAPE-OPEN defines a comprehensive set of standard interfaces for unit operation modules being used within modular and steady-state PMEs. A unit operation module may have several ports that allow it to be connected to other modules and to exchange material, energy or information with them. In the material case (which is also the most common), the port is associated with a Material Object. Ports are given directions (input, output, or input-output). Unit operation modules also have sets of parameters. These represent information that is not associated with the ports, but that the modules wish to expose to their clients. Typical examples include equipment design parameters (e.g. the geometry of a reactor) and important quantities computed by the module (e.g. the capital and operating cost of a reactor).
Changes in this version: none but this interface has been extensively tested.

 Solvers (568 KB)

Focuses on the solution algorithms that are necessary for carrying out steady state and dynamic simulation of lumped systems. In particular, this includes algorithms for the solution of large, sparse systems of non-linear algebraic equations (NLAEs) and mixed (ordinary) differential and algebraic equations (DAEs). Algorithms for the solution of the large sparse systems of linear algebraic equations (LAEs) that often arise as sub-problems in the solution of NLAEs and DAEs are also considered. The CO standard introduces new concepts, such as models and the equation set object (ESO), which is a software abstraction of a set of non-linear algebraic or mixed (ordinary) differential and algebraic equations.
Changes in this version: none

 PDAE (Partial Differential Algebraic Equations) (393 KB)

This interface defines, on top of the Solvers specification, numerical services for systems with some variables distributed along one or several dimensions. In PDAEs the dependent model variables depend on one or more independent variables. Independent variables are for instance spatial co-ordinates, particulate co-ordinates (in case of population balance models) or time (in case of dynamic models). Thus, models of computational fluid dynamics are also included in this class of problems.
Changes in this version: Did not exist previously.

 Optimisation (336 KB)

The Optimisation interfaces define access to Mathematical Programming optimisation services. They are also based on the Solvers architecture. Mathematical programming (IP / LP / NLP / MILP / MINLP) problems involve the minimisation or maximisation of a linear / nonlinear objective function subject to linear / nonlinear constraints. The optimisation may involve both continuous and discrete (integer-valued) decision variables. Mathematical programming optimisation problems arise in many process engineering applications, including process synthesis, process design, product design and others.
Changes in this version: Did not exist previously.

 Parameter Estimation and Data Reconciliation (249 KB) 

The Parameter Estimation and Data Reconciliation interface (PEDR), at its name clearly states, defines interface to (i) parameter estimation algorithms where the value of a model parameter must be adjusted in order to meet constraints such as experimental data; and (ii) data reconciliation packages which eliminate noisy factors from raw measurements of process variables; The DR and PE are very similar problems in the sense that both are constrained optimization problems. Since a PEDR module may require using external optimisation services, the PEDR module may call an optimisation solver module through a CO-compliant interface.
Changes in this version: Did not exist previously.

 Sequential Modular Specific Tools (5.4 MB)

A key part of the operation of sequential modular simulation systems is the analysis of the process flowsheet in order to determine a suitable sequence of calculation of the unit operation modules. This task is typically carried out using a set of tools that operate on the directed graph representation of the flowsheet. The SMST specification defines standard interfaces for the construction of these directed graphs, and for carrying out partitioning, ordering, tearing and sequencing operations on them.
Changes in this version: None, but has been moved from Numerics.

  Planning and Scheduling (551 KB) 

Planning and Scheduling interface defines interfaces to components delivering procedures and processes for allocating equipment over time to execute the chemical and physical-processing tasks required for manufacturing chemical products, generally in batches. These interfaces deal with managing requirements, production resources, recipes, planning and scheduling problems and their solutions.
Changes in this version: Did not exist previously. Need to be thoroughly tested.

 Simulation Context (241 KB) 

Changes in this version: Did not exist previously.

The Diagnostic interface allows communication of verbose information from the PMC to the PME (and hence to the user). PMCs should be able to log or display information to the user while executing a flowsheet

The Material Template interface provides the mechanisms for accessing CAPE-OPEN Property Packages managed by the COSE, in order to allow PMCs to directly choose and configure material objects as needed.

The COSE Utilities provide a small list of other useful functions, in particular the FORTRAN Channel selection which prevents FORTRAN-based PMCs from sending output to channels already used by the COSE.

 Error Common Interface (323 KB) 

Error Handling defines how to manage execution errors (abnormal terminations). When a request is made, if this request is successful it raises no error, otherwise it raises an error. When an error occurs, the execution is immediately aborted. This Error Handling interface gives a classification and a hierarchy of potential errors occurring in CO compliant components. All CO components must implement it.
Changes in this version: None, however it has been polished nad this interface has been extensively tested.

 Identification Common Interface (246 KB) 

Identification interface provides the means for all CO components to be identified by name and textual description. All CO components must implement it.
Changes in this version: None however it has been polished, and this interface has been extensively tested.

 Collections (202kB)

Collections interface defines a standard way of managing collections of things. The aim of the Collection interface is to give a CO component the possibility to expose a list of objects to any client of the component. The client will not be able to modify the collection, i.e. removing, replacing or adding elements. However, since the client will have access to any CO interface exposed by the items of the collection, it will be able to modify the state of any element.
Changes in this version: Did not exist previously. Need to be thoroughly tested.

 Parameters (345 KB)

Defines a standard access to component parameters. This specification will be used by CO components wishing to expose some of their internal data to their clients. The interface is made up of two different parts, each corresponding to a different client need: the first part is a fixed, static aspect that describes the Parameter, such as a type, name, description, dimensionality etc. The second part deals with value of the parameter itself. It is expected that the parameter values will change quite frequently both within and outside of the component that needs it.
Changes in this version: None, but this interface has been extensively tested.

 Utilities (266 KB) 

Gathers a number of useful functionalities that can be requested from process modelling components. In version 1.0, this interface provides the means to set the simulation context, to collect component parameters, to manage lifecycle of components (creation and termination) and to edit, that is, to open an edit GUI for the component.
Changes in this version: Did not exist previously. Has been thoroughly tested.

 Persistence (235 KB)

Defines how models and model elements are stored and retrieved. Most simulation environments allow the possibility to store at any moment the state of a simulation case, in order to be able to restore it at any time in the future. In the CAPE-OPEN distributed environment, where different pieces of the simulation may be implemented by different vendors, the Persistence interface proposes a standard mechanism to provide this feature. This interface is different from all others, as it does not define any new method. Instead, it explains how to use standard persistence mechanisms provided by middleware (COM and CORBA) for this purpose.
Changes in this version: Did not exist previously. Has been thoroughly tested.

 Known Objects (0 byte )

Known objects gather a large number of standard identifiers used in interfaces, such as Thermo, PPDB, and petroleum fractions. These are lists of properties names, names of methods; identification of phases, etc., which form a consistent set of names used throughout these interfaces.
Changes in this version: This is ongoing work.

  CORBA IDL ( 125 KB)

  COM IDL (zipped - 31.5 KB) 

  COM type library (zipped - 202 KB)