CAPE-OPEN

Interface Standard

The CAPE-OPEN Interface Standard

consists of a series of specifications to
expand the range of application of process
simulation technologies. The CAPE-OPEN
specifications comprise a set of software
interfaces that allow plug and play inter-
operability between a given Process
Modelling Environment and a third-party
Process Modelling Component.
Origins
The CAPE-OPEN, European Union funded,
project was established in 1995.[1] The
project involved participants from a
number of companies from the process
industries (Bayer, BASF, BP, DuPont,
French Institute of Petroleum (IFP), Elf
Aquitaine, and Imperial Chemical
Industries (ICI)) together with 15 partners
including software vendors (Aspen
Technology, ProSim, Hyprotech Ltd,
QuantiSci and SimSci]) and academics
(Imperial College London, National
Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse (INPT),
and RWTH Aachen University). The
objective of the project was to
demonstrate the feasibility of a set of
specification interfaces to allow plug and
play interoperability between modelling
environments and third party modelling
components.

Following the completion of the CAPE-

OPEN project in 1999, and the projects
successful proof-of-concept of plug and
play interoperability, a second project,
Global CAPE-OPEN, was formed to turn
the interface specifications into products
that could be widely used by Industry. This
project had a number of key elements
including:
 An interoperability task force to check
on the implementation of CAPE-OPEN in
commercial simulation tools
The subsidy of small simulation vendors
to implement CAPE-OPEN interfaces
The formation of the not-for-profit
organisation, The CAPE-OPEN
Laboratories Network (CO-LaN),[2] to
assure the maintenance and further
development of the CAPE-OPEN
interfaces.

Purpose
Operating companies in the process
industries typically make a significant
financial investment in commercial
simulation technologies. However, all
simulation tools have strengths and
weaknesses. Typically, these reflect a
focus on the particular process industry
for which the simulation package was
originally developed. For example,
simulation packages developed for the oil
industry may have a weakness for the
modelling of certain speciality chemical
systems; modelling environments
focussed on gas and oil systems may not
have the capabilities to handle multiple
liquid phases and/or solids formation.
Although, over time, simulation vendors
improve and enhance the capabilities of
their modelling technologies generally
capability gaps remain. An operating
company can address these capability
gaps by replacing the relevant
components in their tool of choice with
improved components from elsewhere.
Often these improved components
originate from within the operating
company itself and contain significant
intellectual property relating to a specific
process which is not readily available to
the commercial modelling vendors.
Alternatively, the improved components
may come from a company specialising in
niche areas of modelling, for example the
rigorous modelling of heat exchangers or
for thermodynamics and physical
properties.

Historically the integration of third-party

components into a commercial simulation
environment involved the writing of
proprietary software interfaces that
“wrapped” around the new components
and allowed them to communicate with
the host modelling environment. The
degree of difficulty in developing such
interfaces varied significantly depending
on how “open” the host modelling
environment was and how well
documented were the associated
communication protocols. Inevitably
bespoke component interfaces were
difficult to maintain as new versions of the
modelling environment were adopted.
Additionally, a component wrapper for one
environment would not work with an
alternative environment from a different
simulation vendor. User added
subroutines, for both unit operations and
thermodynamic models, is an alternative
approach to component integration but
one that suffers from similar difficulties in
moving the subroutines from one
simulator to another.

The development of a standardised plug

and play capability hence had the potential
to deliver a number of significant business
benefits [3]:

Lower maintenance costs for operating

companies and software vendors due to
the standardisation of the interfaces.
Continuous capture of lessons learned
across the membership community and
the associated improvements to the
interfaces.
The ability to apply a consistent set of
simulation components across all
CAPE-OPEN compliant simulation
environments and other modelling tools
such as MATLAB and Microsoft Excel.
 The ability to choose and incorporate
the technically most appropriate model
for a particular modelling task with the
level of fidelity needed.

Concepts
A number of commercial simulation
programmes are available to support
process modelling. Generally one or more
of these commercial tools will be used by
a given operating company to underpin its
modelling activity. In addition, many
operating companies also maintain their
own in-house software to allow for the
modelling of niche applications not fully
addressed by the commercial tools. Each
simulation programme provides an
environment which allows a process flow-
sheet to be constructed and the process
fluid thermodynamics to be incorporated.
The CAPE-OPEN project formally identified
such a modelling programme as a Process
Modelling Environment (PME) with the
requirement that users of a PME should be
able to easily connect the PME with other
modelling tools without the need to
develop bespoke interfaces. To do this a
PME would be provided with a CAPE-OPEN
“plug” that would allow any CAPE-OPEN
component to be added to the modelling
environment [4].
All PMEs come with a library of unit
operations (vapor-liquid separators, valves,
heat exchangers, distillation columns etc.)
and a range of thermodynamic methods
(equation of state, activity coefficient
models, etc.). These library components
are normally restricted to usage within the
native PME. However, users of a given
PME, often require to substitute a third
party unit operation or thermodynamic
model for the one provided by the native
environment. The CAPE-OPEN project
formally identified a unit operation or a
thermodynamic engine as a Process
Modelling Component (PMC) with the
requirement that a PMC could be
“wrapped” with standard interfaces that
would allow it to be placed in a CAPE-
OPEN compliant PME without the need for
additional interfacing software to be
developed – no programming would be
required either for the modelling
environment or for the core of the
modelling component. In order to organise
its work programmes the CAPE-OPEN
project classified the main elements of a
simulation system namely:

Unit operations; the modelling of

specific process units, e.g. reactors,
distillation columns, heat exchangers. A
unit operation has ports defining the
locations of material stream inputs and
outputs and acquires physical
properties from Material Objects.
Material Objects. These represent
process fluid, energy or information
streams connecting two or more unit
operations. A material object is
associated with a thermodynamic
package which returns physical
properties such as density, viscosity,
thermal conductivity, etc.
Numerical solvers; efficient iterative
numerical methods for solving the
highly non-linear equations set formed
by a process flow-sheet. Iterative
 methods are used to solve the
equations of both a single unit operation
module and to solve the overall flow-
sheet containing a number of inter-
connected unit operations.

Any modelling environment with a CAPE-

OPEN interface, for a unit operation or a
thermodynamics package, would be able
to communicate with any CAPE-OPEN
modelling component without the need for
additional interfacing software to be
written.

The CAPE-OPEN specifications define

software interfaces for process simulation
environments in terms of both the
Microsoft standard COM/DCOM and the
Common Object Request Broker
Architecture (CORBA). Hence both COM
and CORBA based simulators are
supported by the CAPE-OPEN
specifications. The specifications follow
an Object Oriented approach and are
developed and specified using the Unified
Modelling Language (UML). Formal Use
Cases are developed to define end-user
requirements. The Use Cases summarise
the activities and interactions involved
with the installation and application of a
CAPE-OPEN component within a CAPE-
OPEN modelling environment. Once
developed, the Use Cases provide an
effective procedure for testing new CAPE-
OPEN components and environments.

Support
The CAPE-OPEN project ended in 2001
and delivered interface specifications for
unit operations (in steady-state) and
thermodynamic components. A non-profit
organisation, CO-LaN,[2] was subsequently
established to maintain and support the
existing specifications and to continue the
development of additional CAPE-OPEN
interface specifications.

CAPE-OPEN specifications
Currently three main CAPE-OPEN
specifications have found wide use within
the process industries[5]

The unit operation specification, version

1.0, which applies to steady-state
modelling
Thermodynamic and physical property
interface 1.0
Thermodynamic and physical property
interface version 1.1. This interface is a
complete revision of Thermodynamic
and physical property interface 1.0 with
some extended functionality together
with simplifications and increased
flexibility designed to make it easier for
 the CAPE-OPEN implementation to be
carried out. Unfortunately this version of
the interface is not backwards
compatible with version 1.0

The development and support of new

CAPE-OPEN components has been
actively encouraged and supported by CO-
LaN[6][7] and attention has focussed on
new unit operations, not readily available
in commercial simulators[8][9] and the
interfacing of proprietary thermodynamic
and physical property models to
commercial simulation environments
while protecting the inherent intellectual
property.[10] Currently all of the major
commercial process modelling
environments are CAPE-OPEN compliant
and there are many CAPE-OPEN process
modelling components available. A full list
of the available PMEs and PMCs is
available on the CO-LaN website.

Software tools
There is no licensing required from CO-
LaN or another organization in order to
make use of the CAPE-OPEN
specifications. However, CO-LaN has
developed a number of tools to assist with
the implementation of CAPE-OPEN
interfaces:
Software Wizards to assist with the
development of the CAPE-OPEN
interface for modelling components.
Software code examples for
thermodynamic components and unit
operations to provide templates for new
implementations.
A CAPE-OPEN testing environment into
which components can be plugged and
tested for conformity against the CAPE-
OPEN specifications.
A logging tool to capture all
communications between a CAPE-OPEN
modelling component and a CAPE-
OPEN modelling environment[11]
More information on the CO-LaN software
tools together with available downloads
can be found on the CO-LaN website.

In addition, CAPE-OPEN is implemented in

freeware such as COCO simulator, in
openware such as DWSIM, and in many of
the leading commercial simulation tools.

Future developments
Specifications under development by the
CO-LaN include:

Dynamic unit operations. This extension

to the steady-state unit operation
specification will allow third party
 dynamic unit operation models to be
used in a CAPE-OPEN compliant
dynamic simulation environment.
Chemical reactions which will be issued
as an extension to the Thermodynamic
interface [12]
A flow-sheet monitoring specification
A Pptroleum fractions interface
specification

References
1. M. Jarke, J. Köller, W. Marquardt, L.
von Wedel, B. Braunschweig, 1999,
“CAPE-OPEN: Experiences from a
Standardization Effort in Chemical
 Industries”, Proceedings of 1st IEEE
Conference on Standardisation and
Innovation in Information Technology
(SIIT 99), Aachen, Germany, pages 25-
35, ISBN 0-7803-9935-8
2. CO-LaN
3. Banks, P.S.; Irons, K.A.; Woodman, M.R.
Woodman (2005). "Interoperability of
Process Simulation Software". Oil &
Gas Science and Technology. 60:
607–616. doi:10.2516/ogst:2005043 .
4. JP. Belaud, M. Pons, 2002, "Open
Software Architecture For Process
Simulation: The Current Status of
CAPE-OPEN Standard", Computer
Aided Chemical Engineering.,
DOI:10.1016/S1570-7946(02)80169-9
5. Michel Pons, 2009, "Making Use of
CAPE-OPEN Technology in Process
Simulation", Conference: 2009 AIChE
Annual Meeting, ISBN 9781615679133
. Michel Pons, 2010, "How to make use
of CAPE-OPEN?", 2010 AIChE Annual
Meeting, ISBN 9780816910656
7. Jasper Van Baten, Michel Pons, 2014,
“CAPE‐OPEN: Interoperability in
Industrial Flowsheet Simulation
Software”, Chemie Ingenieur Technik,
Volume 86, Issue 7, Pages 1052-1064,
DOI: 10.1002/cite.201400009
. Jasper Van Baten, César G. Pernalete,
Juan C. Urbina, José F. Arévalo, 2015,
“A molecular reconstruction feed
characterization and CAPE OPEN
implementation strategy to develop a
tool for modeling HDT reactors for
light petroleum cuts”, Computer Aided
Chemical Engineering, Volume 37,
ISBN 978-0-444-63429-0 
 9. Jasper van Baten, Richard
Szczepanski, 2011, "A thermodynamic
equilibrium reactor model as a CAPE-
OPEN unit operation", Computers &
Chemical Engineering, Volume 35,
Issue 7, Pages 1251-1256,
DOI:10.1016/j.compchemeng.2010.07.
016
10. Gregor Tolksdorf, Erik Esche, Jasper
van Baten, Gunter Wozny, 2016, Taylor-
Made Modeling and Solution of Novel
Process Units by Modular CAPE-
OPEN-based Flowsheeting,Computer
Aided Chemical Engineering. vol 38,
ISBN 0444634444
11. Michel Pons, Peter Banks, Bertrand
Braunschweig, 2007, "A deliverable
from CO-LaN to CAPE-OPEN
developers and users: the CAPE-OPEN
logging and testing tool (COLTT)", 17th
European Symposium on Computed
Aided Process Engineering,
ISBN 0080546315 
12. Michel Pons, 2003, "The CAPE-OPEN
Interface Specification for Reactions
Package", Computer-Aided Chemical
Engineering, Volume 14,
DOI:10.1016/S1570-7946(03)80225-0
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