CAPE-OPEN was present at the recent AIChE Annual Meeting that took place in Cincinnati last November. Explanations and a demo of use of a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool, namely Fluent, within a steady-state process simulator (Aspen Plus) were given by Steve Zitney from the US DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory. The link between Fluent and Aspen Plus relies entirely on CAPE-OPEN technology. In the future, the integration capability provided through CAPE-OPEN will prompt improvements in the solution strategy applied to such co-simulation problems: switching from full scale CFD models to reduced-order models has to be automated in order to get an ever better value out of this software combination. Such an improvement is not part of the design of the CAPE-OPEN standard, however CAPE-OPEN provides the capability to effect such a software combination.
Another presentation was made in session 10e02 about the coupling of a thermodynamic server with MATLAB. Most often MATLAB models rely on user entered or user developed thermodynamic models when they need thermodynamic properties. That may bring inconsistencies between MATLAB based models and process models made with other simulation tools, just because the thermodynamic models used are different. ProSim SA, a French software company, released recently a piece of software, Simulis Thermodynamics, that is provided with a MATLAB toolbox that lets the end-user call a 3rd party CAPE-OPEN compliant thermodynamic server from within MATLAB, eliminating the need for user defined properties and considerably reducing the risk of thermodynamic inconsistencies throughout process engineering workflow. The demonstration showed the calling of Aspen Properties from within MATLAB. Any other CAPE-OPEN thermodynamic server could have been used in the same way.
These two presentations highlighted some of the recent progress made in CAPE-OPEN implementation and usage. More on this progress will be presented in March 2006 at the Annual CO-LaN Interoperability Showcase that will take place in Cannes, France on March 9. Visit the CO-LaN website at www.colan.org for additional information. An Interoperability Workshop will immediately follow the Showcase to enable software developers to exchange ideas and to test their CAPE-OPEN implementations. The Showcase is open to all interested in knowing more about CAPE-OPEN implementation. Contributions from the entire CAPE-OPEN community are expected.
The CAPE-OPEN community is constantly growing, with 48 members today from Europe, North America and Asia. It brings both varied point of views and additional implementation opportunities for CAPE-OPEN.