June 30, 2010
AFT Fathom™ Non-Settling Slurry Module
Announcing the newest addition to the AFT Fathom™ family, the Non-Settling Slurry Module (NSL). The NSL module addresses the unusual viscous behavior that can occur in piping systems with both non-settling slurries and general non-Newtonian fluids. It also addresses the frictional effects of these fluids on pipes, valves and fittings when designing a system.
Using widely accepted methodologies, the NSL module automates the process of determining Power Law and Bingham Plastic constants, avoiding the pitfalls of manual calculations. Raw, rheological test data can be accepted and manipulated to make it useful for full scale engineering designs, calculations, and simulations. The NSL module also offers a method to adjust junction and fitting loss data to extend turbulent data into the laminar region to compensate for non-Newtonian fluid behavior.
The AFT Fathom NSL Module let’s you:
- Enter and manipulate raw rheological data
- Convert rheological data into Power Law and Bingham Plastic models
- Scale-up rheological data to larger diameter pipes and accurately determine the pressure drop for alternate flow rates and pipe sizes
- Cross-plot the scaled data, Power Law or Bingham Plastic correlation for comparison purposes
- Calculate pressure drop across valves, fittings and equipment under laminar flow conditions
Slurry systems present unique challenges in the world of hydraulic system design and simulation. Now, with the AFT Fathom slurry modules (SSL for settling and NSL for non-settling), you can be confident that you have the best tools available to accurately account for slurry properties and to expertly handle this complex area of fluid mechanics. Whether you are working on a new design, modifying an existing design or simulating system operation, AFT Fathom provides everything you need to develop comprehensive models of your piping systems. Can AFT software help you with your process? To find out more about AFT Fathom or the AFT Fathom slurry modules visit our website.
AFT Applications
What could the manufacturing process of M&M's® candies and the clean-up of nuclear waste possibly have in common? If you haven't already guessed, it's AFT Fathom™. AFT Fathom, the most advanced piping system modeling software available, along with its optional add-on modules, provides an amazingly broad scope of capabilities to meet your exacting requirements. AFT Fathom is used in many diverse industries worldwide.
Washington River Protection Solutions is using AFT Fathom with both the extended time simulation (XTS) and the settling slurry (SSL) modules to determine the optimal pipe flow system for pumping tanks and for transporting radioactive waste that is made up of liquid, sludge and solids. Mars North America has used AFT Fathom to evaluate and improve the pipe flow systems in its Cleveland, Tennessee manufacturing facility. For more detail on both Mars, Inc. and Washington River Protection Solutions continue reading below.
Other industry examples of slurry applications are found in mining, oil (especially in oil sands found in Alberta, Canada), pharmaceutical and bio-medical, general food processing, power (ash handling), drilling, pulp and paper, agricultural, and construction (cement and tar).
Mars, Inc.
Almost everyone recognizes the colorful chocolate candies known as M&M's® produced by Mars, Inc. Founded in 1940 by Forrest E. Mars, Sr., the company got its start by manufacturing M&M's® Plain Chocolate Candies, a new confection thought of as a neater, more convenient way to eat chocolate.
Mars North America, the U.S. operations of Mars, Inc., has grown to become one of the world's leading
food manufacturers, with more than $7 billion in annual sales and more than 12,000 employees. There are currently eight manufacturing sites in the United States. 
Mars North America's Cleveland, Tennessee manufacturing plant has used AFT Fathom™ to evaluate and improve its pipe flow systems. The Cleveland plant produces all varieties of M&M'S® Chocolate Candies, and TWIX® Cookie Bars.
Ingredients
Hardened, liquid chocolate and a hard candy shell are the main components of M&M's. Liquid chocolate, a non-Newtonian fluid, comes from a blend of whole milk, cocoa butter, sugar, and chocolate liquor, among other ingredients. Chocolate liquor is composed of small particles of roasted cocoa nibs suspended in oil. The candy shell is made from a blend of sugar and corn syrup.
Manufacturing Process
- The liquid chocolate is poured into tiny molds to create the chocolate centers of the candy.
- After the candies are formed, they are tumbled to round the center and allowed to harden.
- The chocolates are transported via conveyor belt to the coating area, where they are rotated in large containers as liquid candy is sprayed onto them. Several coats are applied at timed intervals and allowed to dry
- Color is added to syrup, applied as the final coat and allowed to dry. Each batch is a different color.
- The single-colored batches are combined into the mixtures of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and brown. Plain M&M's are proportioned approximately as follows: 30% brown; 20% yellow; 20% red; 10% green; 10% orange; 10% blue.
- Next, they have the "m" stamped on the shells. A special conveyor moves the pieces, each resting in its own indentation, to a machine specially designed to imprint the "m" without cracking the thin candy shell. The piece runs under rubber rollers that gently touch each candy to print the "m." A missing "m" is not considered a reject. Due to minor shape variations, it is impossible to guarantee an "m" on each piece.
- A packaging machine weighs the candies, pours the proper amount into individual bags, and heat-seals the package.
M&M's® Trivia
- One hundred million individual M&M's can be manufactured per day.
- Peanut M&M's were first introduced in 1954.
- M&M's have been on almost every space shuttle mission since 1982.
- During World War II, M&M's were included in American soldiers' C rations because they withstood extreme temperatures.
- Fillings include milk chocolate, dark chocolate, mint chocolate, peanuts, almonds, orange chocolate, and peanut butter.
- M&M's are sold in over 100 countries.
- In 1976, red-colored M&M's were discontinued due to a health concern associated with a certain red food coloring. Although this controversial coloring was not used in the M&M's, the company did not want to confuse the consumer. Red reappeared in 1987.
- In response to a consumer survey, blue M&M's replaced tan M&M's in 1995.
About Mars, Inc.
Mars, Incorporated is a worldwide manufacturer of confections, pet food and other food products with $21 billion in annual sales in 2008. Family-owned for nearly a century, Mars, Inc. is ranked as the 6th largest privately-held company in the United States by Forbes.
Washington River Protection Solutions
Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), a joint venture between URS Corporation and Energy Solutions, has the enormous responsibility to safely store, retrieve, and treat high-level radioactive waste at the 586 square mile Hanford Site in southeastern Washington. The primary focus of the $7.1 billion project is to reduce risk to the environment, the Columbia River, WRPS employees, and the public.
About 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste is stored 10 feet underground in 177 tanks dating from the early days of the Manhattan Project to near the end of the Cold War. Stored in 149 older single-shell tanks and 28 newer and safer double-shell tanks, the waste is situated near the center of the Hanford Site. The single-shell tanks have long since passed their original design life and up to 67 of them have leaked as much as one million gallons of waste into the surrounding soil, but even the newest tanks went into service over 20 years ago. These deteriorating tanks are located just 10 miles from the Columbia River and within a 50 mile radius of over 200,000 residents.
The remains of 120,000 tons of irradiated uranium from World War II and the post war production of material for nuclear weapons, which account for 6 percent by volume of our nation's high-level radioactive waste, are inside the tanks. The waste is made up of nearly 200 million curies of radioactivity, as well as a complex mixture of hazardous chemicals that varies in form from liquid, to sludge, to rock-hard solids. 
Work is underway to replace obsolete ventilation and exhaust equipment, to bring electrical systems up to modern building codes, and to create the infrastructure needed to transfer waste between tanks and from the aging tank farms to the Waste Treatment Plant, currently under construction. Some of the waste is being removed using modified sluicing technology, which uses high pressure liquid to create a slurry of the sludge and other solid material so it can be pumped to the double shell tanks.
One of the tools used to make retrieval operations more efficient and cost effective is AFT Software. WRPS is using AFT Fathom™ with both the extended time simulation (XTS) and the settling slurry (SSL) modules to determine the optimal pipe flow system for pumping the tanks and for transporting the radioactive waste to the new treatment facility.
www.wrpstoc.com 3/2010
Expanded Pump Selection
AFT Fathom™ and AFT Mercury™ are now able to directly transfer pump requirements to an even larger number of online pump selectors.
Selected pump data can be transferred back to your model and be immediately evaluated, further enhancing your ability to properly design and optimize piping systems.
With a mouse click, you can transmit pump requirements (e.g., head, flow, NPSHA, pressure, temperature, etc.) determined by the system model created with AFT Fathom and AFT Mercury directly to the Intelliquip online pump selector. Pumps meeting the requirements, along with their comprehensive performance curves, are transferred back to your model.
Performance curve data is immediately available to use or save in your AFT pump databases. This data exchange link will be available to many pump manufacturers using the Intelliquip pump selector. Six pump manufacturers are pre-built into both AFT Fathom and AFT Mercury. Additional pump manufacturer's login information may be added to the database to further extend your selection options.
The following pump companies are the first of many Intelliquip clients that will participate in this program: ABS, Berkeley, Blackmer, Ebara Fluid Handling, Grundfos/Paco Pumps, ITT Residential and Commercial-Texas Turbine Operations, Pumpworks 610, RuhrPumpen, Weir Floway, and Weir SP.
Software aided pipe system modeling has become increasingly important as companies like yours demand piping designs that optimize the total cost of ownership. This includes the process of selecting the proper pump for the application.
The AFT and Intelliquip linkage affords time savings and increased convenience when developing system models that incorporate pumps.
A brief tutorial is available explaining how this feature works.