(489f) Remote Access Networked Models in a Collaborative Power Industry Application

The Virtual Process Demonstration Model (VPDM) project is a collaboration between power companies, plant vendors and software vendors to create a unified modelling platform for detailed power plant design that uses CAPE-OPEN standards for communications between the central flowsheet and vendors' proprietary units. Developments for the VPDM project include an extension to CAPE-OPEN allowing proprietary models to be executed on the vendors' own machines and connected to a central gPROMS model via a secure internet connection. This has been developed for use in cases where vendors wish to protect their intellectual property from other vendors on the same project, who may be competitors in other contexts, and is an essential pre-requisite for the collaboration. The development makes available in a commercial context a technology that has been built into CAPE-OPEN standards from the start.

Additionally a simple mechanism for packaging legacy models in CAPE-OPEN wrappers is demonstrated. This can be used even in cases where the original source code has been lost.