AFT Fathom is a practical tool for simulating incompressible fluid flow in piping systems.
- Understand the hydraulic behavior of your system and predict how pipes, valves, pumps and other components will interact with each other.
- Evaluate the performance of new designs and assure all design requirements are met.
- Identify and correct operational problems in installed systems.
- Produce less costly, more efficient and more reliable piping systems.
How does it work?
AFT Fathom’s hydraulic solution engine uses the Newton-Raphson matrix iteration method plus proprietary methods developed by AFT to solve pipe flow and duct flow applications. AFT Fathom uses the Bernoulli’s Equation and Reynolds Number-based relationships for pipe friction calculation.
With AFT Fathom you can….
- Model a wide range of system components for both design and operational cases
- Vary your system line-up: open and close pipes and valves, turn pumps on or off, set control valves to fail position
- Specify alerts that automatically highlight output values that are out of range for flow, pressure or velocity
- Select pumps from online manufacturer catalogs
- Compile catalogs of your frequently used piping components and quickly select them from a drop down list.
Modeling Features
Pipes
- Specify diameter, length and roughness or select by material type and schedule from the built-in database
- Select friction modeling from an extensive list including:
- pipe roughness
- Hazen Williams
- MIT Equation for crude oil
- Miller Turbulent Method for light hydrocarbons
- User specified pipe resistance
- Friction modeling includes pulp & paper and non- Newtonian fluids
- Model heat transfer and add insulation layers – predict insulation surface temperatures to ensure compliance with workplace safety regulations
- Use embedded fittings to reduce workspace complexity
Pumps
- Explore the interaction of pumps and your system
- Model pump power and associated energy costs
- Evaluate a large range of potential pump selections by importing external databases or linking to Intelliquip™ powered pump selectors
- Select between fixed specified flow or modeling with a pump curve
- Model VFDs and pump control to maintain a set flow rate or head/pressure
- Automatically correct for viscous fluid behavior
- Predict available NPSH
Valves
- Model relief valves, check valves, three-way valves
- Determine control valve capacity and insure adequate pressure drop
- Simulate pressure and flow control valves to test system interaction in the design stage
- Display effective Cv and K factor values for all valves in the system
- Identify control valve position to ensure stable valve operation
Fluid Property Models
- Constant fluid properties
- Variable fluid properties - you can specify differing fluid properties on a pipe by pipe basis
- Heat transfer with energy balance, single fluid - modeling heat transfer through pipe boundaries and heat exchangers along with fluid property variations with temperature
- Heat transfer with energy balance, multiple fluids - modeling heat transfer between multiple hydraulic circuits thermally linked through heat exchangers
Scenario Manager
- Evaluate “What-if” cases by comparing several scenarios
- Make data changes in one scenario can be passed down to dependent scenarios
- Easily develop and switch between different operating conditions or configurations
- Evaluate new or expanding system configurations
Reporting Features
Output
- Display pipe and junction reporting sections all at once or individually
- Select output format, units and displayed items through Output Control
- Make changes to the format without re-running the analysis
- Export results to a file or copy/paste into Excel for additional reporting options
- Display differing units for parameters simultaneously
- View input and output data for multiple scenarios simultaneously
Visual Results
- Displays selected input or output parameters with your model schematic
- Vary pipe color in the model according to parameters you define based on pressure, temperature, flow and many others to see results in the context of your system
- Clearly illustrate individual lines in the context of your entire system using color mapping
Graph Results
- Graphs of flow, pressure, temperature and many other parameters are quickly and easily generated by pipe or along a flowstream
- Show system curves and pump vs. system curves
- Demonstrate how system performance varies based on the number of pumps in operation by showing different pump curve combinations in one pump vs. system curve graph
Viewer
Share your models with anyone who may not need a full version of AFT Fathom. The Viewer is a free application that lets you:
- Open a model and view any of the windows (Workspace, Model Data, Output, Visual Report, Graph Results)
- Run the model and graph output data
- Print and export data
- You cannot edit an existing model or create new models with the Viewer.
