AFT Blog
In the final "Know Your Pump & System Curves" blog series, I am going to discuss the complexities behind pump vs. system curves for systems with pumps in series and parallel configurations. Multiple pumps in series configurations are relatively straight-forward and will be discussed briefly. Operating pumps in parallel configuration involve a f...
In this blog, we dive further into pump and system curves for complex systems. The examples include demonstrating system curves changing over time and when multiple system curves exist for a single system with multiple pumps in different locations of the system. Let us re-visit the multi-branched system example from the previo...
Pump vs. system curves provide an intuitive, graphic way to understand how a pump interacts with a piping system. These can be useful during pump sizing, but can also be informative when your pump must function in a variety of operating conditions. Understanding how changes to your pump or system affect your operating point can be invalua...
What is BEP & why is it important? Every pump has an ideal range of operation where the pump is most efficient. The peak of the efficiency curve is known as the best efficiency point (BEP). Determining how far your pump is operating from its BEP is critical to increasing pump reliability and efficiency as well as meeting API 610 recommendations. AFT Fathom models pump curves with efficiency data and will determine the margin between the simulated operation of the pump and the actual best efficiency point. Our friends at Empowering Pumps shared an article titled, "Some Effects of Operating Pumps Away from Best Efficiency Point" which...
AFT Fathom can easily generate a pump and system curve for your piping system. Creating a pump and system curve for a simple system with a single flow path and no control features is an easy and typically well-understood process. However, as piping systems are quite complicated with lots of branch points, control features, and dynamic interactions, creating a useful system curve can quickly become a common source of confusion. This three-part blog series is going to help clarify concepts regarding pump and system curves to better understand them. This Part 1 blog will discuss the basics of what pump...
Previously, I wrote an article that discussed how to account for density differences between a pump manufacturer's test fluid and a system fluid for pumps as well as the importance, https://www.aft.com/blog/entry/2014/12/02/reference-densities-for-pump-operation. Both AFT Fathom and AFT Impulse can take into account these density differences very easily, thus, reducing the efforts for the user. But what about viscosity corrections? Is it important to take this into account as well? How is this accomplished? Does it really make a difference? If the system fluid you are modeling has a HIGHER VISCOSITY (more resistant to flow) than the fluid the pump was tested with,...
You have just received a pump curve from a manufacturer to use in modeling your piping system. However, the pump manufacturer only tested their pump with water while your system fluid has a density that is different than water. These differences need to be accounted for with your flow model as well. This may sound like a bit of a daunting task up front. But there is good news! In AFT Fathom 8 and AFT Impulse 5, there are two very helpful features that will allow you to easily account for these differences with no trouble at all! The pressure rise...