chemical engineering research and design 86 (2008) 823–833 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Chemical Engineering Research and Design journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cherd Use of CAPE-OPEN standards in the interoperability between modelling tools (MoT) and process simulators (Simulis ® Thermodynamics and ProSimPlus) Ricardo Morales-Rodr´ ıguez a , Rafiqul Gani a,* , St´ ephane D´ echelotte b , Alain Vacher b , Olivier Baudouin b a CAPEC, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark b ProSim S.A., Strat` ege B ˆ atiment A, BP 27210, F-31672 LABEGE Cedex, France abstract Computer-aided design, analysis and/or operation of chemical products and processes that manufacture them require a number of computational tools. As these tools may come from different sources and disciplines, an impor- tant issue is how they can be used simultaneously and efficiently for the design, analysis and/or simulation of a specific process-product? One alternative is to employ CAPE-OPEN standard interfaces for integration of the set of diverse computational tools that may be needed to solve the problem. The objective of this paper is to highlight, through examples, the integration of different computational tools according to problem specific work-flows/data-flows. The reliability of the integration of different tools is illustrated through two case studies. In case study 1, the tools Simulis ® Thermodynamics (PME) and ICAS-MoT (PMC) are combined for the calculation of thermodynamic proper- ties through the use of a standard middleware (DLL file). In case study 2, the interoperability between ProSimPlus simulator (PME) and ICAS-MoT (PMC) is highlighted for simulation of a new unit operation and combined with other unit operations that can be found in the host simulator. A ProSimPlus-ICAS-MoT–COFE interoperability is also carried out successfully to proof the interoperability of the different computational entities. Furthermore, the introduction of the multiscale modelling concept and its application through the CAPE-OPEN standards is high- lighted. © 2008 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: CAPE-OPEN; Process modelling components; Process modelling environments; Simulis ® Thermodynamic; ProSimPlus; ICAS-MoT 1. Introduction Simulation and modelling continues to play a very important role for chemical engineers in the study, evaluation, devel- opment, etc., of chemical processes by producing different alternatives in the design/production of product/process of chemicals and thereby, avoiding expenses in experimenta- tion. The CAPE-OPEN effort is a standardisation process for achieving true plug and play of process industry sim- ulation software components and environments, where, CAPE-OPEN Laboratorties Network (CO-LaN) consortium ∗ Corresponding author at: CAPEC, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark. Tel.: +45 4525 2882; fax: +45 4593 2906. E-mail address: rag@kt.dtu.dk (R. Gani). Received 2 November 2007; Accepted 24 February 2008 is in charge of managing the lifecycle of the CAPE- OPEN standard (Belaud and Pons, 2002). The objective of CAPE-OPEN project was to clarify user priorities for process modelling software component/environment inter- operability and promote the use of CAPE-OPEN standards to create commercially valuable interoperability (Pons, 2005a). The follow-up of the CAPE-OPEN project, called the Global CAPE-OPEN project, focused on the development of stan- dards in new subfields of process modelling and simulation addressing complex physical properties, kinetic models, new numerical algorithms and distributed models. Also, future 0263-8762/$ – see front matter © 2008 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cherd.2008.02.022