On June 23, 2023, CO-LaN Management Board authorized the public release of a revised Petroleum Fractions interface specification. This revision was developed by the UNIT SIG. The document was reviewed by the CO-LaN membership from September 2021 onward. There was no meeting of the UNIT SIG throughout most of 2022 and the delivery process was renewed early in 2023 with additional comments considered and processed, completing the revision.
The document proposes one new interface, ICapeThermoPetroleumFractions, on the Material Object for handling complex mixtures containing Petroleum Fractions.
The proposed interface allows Unit Operations to read and modify properties specific to the petroleum and gas industry, such as cloud point, pour point, and Reid vapour pressure. The interface also allows run-time re-characterization of the properties of a Petroleum Fraction (e.g., Normal Boiling Point, Molecular Weight, Specific Gravity, Critical Temperature, etc…).
Therefore, the interface allows for extending plug-and-play of Unit Operation software components to the specific process operations present in the petroleum and gas industry (e.g., refining, upstream, etc…). Many of these specific Unit Operations are reactors (cat-crackers, hydrocracker, etc…) that change compound property values of Petroleum Fractions.
Only interactions between a PME and Unit Operations on Petroleum Fractions are considered in this interface specification. Furthermore, only thermodynamic services native to the PME are considered. Hence interaction regarding Petroleum Fractions between a PME and external Property Packages is not in the scope of this interface specification. Curve properties are excluded from the scope. Functionality of blend rules is not carried through the existing and newly proposed CAPE-OPEN interface.
The IDL corresponding to this new interface has been developed by UNIT SIG, so that it can be incorporated in the CAPE-OPEN 1.1 extended Type Library and corresponding Primary Interop Assembly. As reported at the CAPE-OPEN 2023 Annual Meeting, Interoperability SIG is tasked, pending budget approval, with releasing a new version of that Type Library incorporating the new Petroleum Fractions interface specification.
Therefore it seems appropriate to release now the textual interface specification, with a binary release coming up soon for implementation purposes.