March 26, 2007
New AFT Distributor in Brazil
AFT is pleased to announce our newest distributor, N.A. Tecnologia e Sistemas of São Paulo, Brazil.
N.A. Tecnologia offers sales and support on a wide range of software products related to plant design ranging from layout, to structural to equipment design and, now, the extensive fluid design and simulation capabilities provided by the suite of AFT flow modeling software.
For information and assistance on AFT products in Brazil we encourage you to contact N.A. Tecnologia at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
AFT Around the World
The past couple of months have seen quite a bit of activity at AFT with an international flair involving traveling both to and from our offices in Woodland Park, Colorado.
We were pleased to have three principals from AFT's distributor in Spain, Catalonia Engineering Solutions, attend our AFT Fathom and AFT Impulse seminar in February. In addition to the regular seminar, Catalonia stayed for training in AFT Arrow and the Arrow and Fathom Add-on modules. For additional information on AFT products in Spain please visit Catalonia's website at www.catalonia.es.
After hosting our friends from Spain it was AFT's turn to do a bit of traveling, this time to provide onsite training at a nuclear power plant near Taipei, visiting a variety of engineering firms in Bejing and to provide training to our distributor in China, ACEsoft Engineering Software of Bejing.
For additional information on AFT products in China please visit AECsoft's website at www.aecsoft.com.cn and in Taiwan Autosoftware Technology's website at www.auto-soft.com.tw.
What People Are Saying
We're always pleased to receive customer feedback and regularly here from AFT software users on their positive experience and the benefits they receive from using AFT flow modeling software. One received recently from a new AFT Fathom user, Jesse Cabrera of Stanley Consultants in Austin, Texas, was particularly interesting as it reflected Jesse's experience using a variety of pipe flow modeling software. "Overall, I like Fathom a lot better than Pipe2000 and PipeFlo. It's alot more intuitive than the other packages. I was able to jump on-board and build my models fairly quickly.", said Jesse.
Jesse's experience is typical of the many engineers using AFT software and reflects the ongoing development of our products here at Applied Flow Technology. As many engineers have discovered, AFT's interface allows ready access to the extensive analytical power contained in all AFT software and provides real world benefits in productivity and quality of engineering design.
Tip of the Month - Calculating Results in Pipes and Junctions Not in Service
AFT flow modeling software allows you to easily change system line-up by closing junctions and pipes. How you take a portion of a system out of service affects what calculated results are available in output. Let's take the case where we have a valve, pipe, heat exchanger, pipe and valve in sequence.
To close one of the valves we can either open its specifications window, select the Optional tab and check 'Special Condition / Closed' or simply click the valve junction to select it then click the Special Condition button on the toolbar. A red "X" will appear next to the junction label and pipes with flow turned off will be displayed as a dashed line on the Workspace.`
If we close one of the two valves in the valve-pipe-heat exchanger-pipe-valve sequence, results in the Output window will show zero flow but pressures and, if we're doing heat transfer, temperatures, in all the pipes and junctions. Just as in a real system, closing only one valve will block flow but will still allow pressure and temperature to communicate to the pipes and components on either side of the closed valve.
Next let's close both valves in our valve-pipe-heat exchanger-pipe-valve sequence. As before the Output results will show zero flow but now 'No Solution' will be displayed for pressures and temperatures in the pipes and junctions between the two closed valves. Isolated on both sides, the pipes and junctions between the two closed valves cannot communicate to the rest of the system and, indeed, there is no information with which to calculate pressures and temperatures, hence the 'No Solution' display.
Now let's take the example of closing one of the pipes in the valve-pipe-heat exchanger-pipe-valve sequence. As with closing one valve output will show zero flow but pressure and temperature solutions will be available in all pipes and junctions. In real piping systems one doesn't close a pipe, of course, but AFT software provides this option as a modeling convenience so as not to force the inclusion of a valve junction just for the purpose of closing off part of a system.
Finally let's close two pipes and now we will see zero flow and, for the closed pipes and junctions between the closed pipes, 'No Solution' for pressures and temperatures. Closing two pipes is thus equivalent to closing valves at the far ends of the closed pipes.