AFT Fathom Celebrates 25 Years of Dynamic Solutions

The software was the world's first commercial graphical "drag-and-drop" pipe flow analysis tool for Windows®.

 Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA --- AFT Fathom™ is considered by many as the world's leading pipe flow modeling software tool and Applied Flow Technology (AFT) is celebrating the product’s 25^th Anniversary.

The story behind the Fathom name is intimately tied to the story behind the founding of Applied Flow Technology as a company in 1993. AFT Fathom started as a hobby while AFT President and Founder, Trey Walters, P.E., was working in the power industry as a research engineer. As a hobby Trey began developing a software product that did both steady-state and waterhammer calculations. He coined a name Fundamental Analysis of Transient Hydraulics using Object-oriented Modeling (FATHOM).

AFT as company was born in September 1993. But the "FATHOM" software was only half finished and Trey had no software to sell. He made a decision to have Fathom focus on steady-state pipe flow modeling and not perform waterhammer modeling. In doing so, it made his product name obsolete as "Transient Hydraulics" is a term to describe waterhammer. Fathom would focus on just steady-state modeling - so he could have a product to sell. He dropped the meaning of the acronym and the software just became "Fathom".

A trademark attorney would later advise him to use the name AFT Fathom and it was commercially released on April 12, 1994. The first license was sold in May.

The development plan for AFT Fathom has always been simple: to develop a product made by engineers for engineers to help them easily understand their piping system and predict how pipes, valves, pumps and other components interact with each other. Since the first license was sold in 1994, the tool has been used by tens of thousands of engineers to accurately select and size components to produce safer, less costly and more reliable piping systems.

Trey’s goal was to give engineers a dependable tool that could replace spreadsheets and would give reliable calculations in minutes versus hours or even days.

In 1993-1994, Microsoft Windows (version 3.1) was emerging as the future of desktop operating systems. And graphical user interfaces were emerging as the future of commercial software. It was still mostly a DOS world at that time for most engineers. There were no graphical "drag-and-drop" software products for pipe flow modeling in Windows, and AFT Fathom was the world's first such commercial product.

In 1996 a DuPont® engineer was looking to replace a home-grown and maintained x-y-z coordinate software that didn’t allow his company to really see what was going on in their systems. Prior to software such as AFT, it was common for companies to write their own programs because they had no other options. His company wanted to replace it with something commercial. After trying the software packages that were available at the time, it really came down to just a couple. AFT’s willingness to do some things specifically for them is why they ultimately chose to use AFT.

For the DuPont engineer, the first version that came out in 1996 was enough to say “wow this is fantastic” just because It was so easy to learn. However, in the DuPont engineer’s opinion, the biggest evolution by far to ever happen in the software was the Scenario Manager. The engineer says, “That was the neatest thing to happen because we could save all these different conditions.” Another tremendous capability was when he was able to model non-Newtonian fluids, which they get into quite often, “To have that capability in the software has really helped us save and helped us work out multi-million-dollar issues.”

Since 1994, the drag-and-drop interface and the original steady-state solution algorithm is largely still used today. In 2012, AFT Fathom 8 was release with a combined common code structure and migrated to the “.NET” framework. A 3^rd party tool to handle the drag-and-drop interface was implemented, and Trey's original drag-and-drop code from 1993 was retired after almost 20 years of use.

In 2018 the interface was enhanced yet again with the release of AFT Fathom 10. This gives engineers the ability to integrate more than ever with Excel®, GIS Shapefiles, CAESAR II®, EPANET, ROHR2™, AutoCAD® Plant 3D, SmartPlant®, PDS™ and CADWorx® as well as utilize 2D or isometric pipe model viewing. The new features added a level of ability to not only efficiently model and analyze a system, but to present it to others in an isometric and more 3D-like fashion.

Throughout the past 25 years, AFT Fathom has been used by leading international companies and engineers. From theme parks to aerospace, and refineries to power generation, AFT Fathom has been used around the world to identify solutions and create proactive designs within the world’s most advanced piping and ducting systems.

Where the software tool goes will depend on industry trends. As long as fluids are transported through piping systems, AFT Fathom will be there to model and analyze the flow.

AFT Supports Research Students Domestically and Abroad

AFT often donates full version licenses to university research students around the world for graduate and Ph.D. projects, as well as senior group projects. To request a license, students must work with their professor to submit a letter of request to AFT. After the project is concluded, students submit a report of their findings to AFT. 

The partnership is dually beneficial. Students receive an industry-leading, fluid flow simulation tool, and AFT gains insight into innovative engineering projects which help us continue to provide software that meets and exceeds the expectations of engineers; both now and as younger engineers enter the workforce.  

Applied Flow Technology (AFT) has donated software to dozens of universities around the world and offers extremely inexpensive software bundles to professors who teach hydraulic flow. Recently AFT donated AFT Arrow and the Goal Seek & Control (GSC) Module to a university researcher from National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. 

Researcher Wan -Yi Hong will use AFT Arrow and the Goal Seek & Control Module to evaluate the effectiveness of existing natural gas pipeline networks in Taiwan. He will evaluate the effectiveness of pipeline network supply of natural gas by collecting existing known data such as pipeline diameter, pressure, temperature, time, flow, etc. and evaluate them under challenges and constraints.

According to Hong, AFT is known for its professional software for fluid simulation analysis of pipelines. In his research project, titled, "Building a Natural Gas Network Traffic Assessment and Prediction Model" Hong will simulate a network and will then verify the data using AFT Arrow.

At Kansas State University in the United States, students will be using AFT Fathom, along with the GSC Module, to redesign the the campus boiler feed pump. The current boiler feed water pumps are currently much larger than necessary. To remedy this, students Jacob Ockerhausen, Mark Blevins, Glen Coffman, Mathew Walburn, and Marcus Gammill are designing a new pump layout with new, much smaller, pumps. The end goal of this project is to greatly reduce the energy costs that Kansas State pays for its campus heating. To begin this project, the team toured the facilities building to better understand the current situation and to see the space and fixtures. They calculated the NPSH and the pump discharge head loss values by hand using fluid mechanics textbooks. 

They have values they believe are accurate, but wanted to calculate the values using the AFT Fathom to confirm their results and request a quote for the design boiler feed water pump skid.

Finally, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology located in Wroclaw, Poland used AFT Impulse on two student projects on waterhammer and pressure pulsation research. In the first project, titled Waterhammer phenomenon analysis in a process installation on the example of an oil pumping station, Karolina Pawluć investigates waterhammer as a result of the sudden closing of valves or sudden stop of the pump in a process oil system by means of numerical simulation. The scope of work includes the analysis of the state of knowledge in the field of numerical modeling of the waterhammer phenomenon in pipeline installations, preparation of geometric and numerical models of the selected section of the installation, definition of boundary conditions, performing numerical calculations and analysis of the results. 

Wroclaw's second project, titled Pressure pulsation analysis in a process installation on the example of an oil pumping station, Dominika Wyrwas investigates pressure pulsation generated by positive displacement pumps in an oil process installation by means of numerical simulations. The scope of work includes a state of knowledge analysis in the field of numerical modeling of pulsating flows in pipelines, preparation of geometric and numerical models of the selected section of the installation and definition of boundary conditions, performing numerical calculations and analyzing the results.  

Learn more about AFT's opportunities for education at www.aft.com/education. 

Trey Walters, P.E. to Present to UCCS School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Research Seminar Series

Applied Flow Technology's President, Trey Walters, P.E. will present "Waterhammer Theory & Applications" as a part of the University of Colorado Colorado Springs MAE Research Seminar Series. The series is a monthly event and is open to any UCCS student and general public members who would like to attend. 

Trey is not foreign to the UCCS campus nor to any other engineering programs within Colorado. A request for Trey to either speak or guest lecture in an engineering class, or campus organizations, is a regular occurrence which Walters enjoys. He is a regular visitor at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Boulder, and Colorado School of Mines. 

While Trey has worked with waterhammer/surge issues since creating AFT Impulse in the mid-90's. He worked extensively in 2019 to spread education and create awareness on the methods associated with waterhammer and surge analysis. He presented three technical papers at the 2018 ASME PVP conference in Prague, Czech Republic and five technical papers at the distinguished 2018 Pressure Surge Conference in Bordeaux, France. Additionally, he presented a short course on waterhammer at the 2018 Texas A&M University Turbomachinery & Pump Symposium in Houston, Texas USA and has been asked to present at the 2019 conference. Finally, Trey will present at the 2019 Hydraulic Insitute spring conference in Florida USA in February. 

If you would like to attend the UCCS presentation: 

To subscribe to the MAE Seminar Mailing List, please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Applied Flow Technology Announces 2019 Platinum Pipe Award Winners 

Applied Flow Technology is proud to announce the winners of our 2019 Platinum Pipe Award. Each year we recognize excellence in piping and ducting system models using AFT software.

All winners won a $500 Amazon gift card and $2,000 in software credit for their company. 

Below are the winners and condensed descriptions of their projects. Those who receive the AFT Pipeline monthly newsletter will see expanded case studies and the detailed models for each of the four winning projects as well as three projects who received Honorable Mentions. 

Most Interesting Model

• Joel Neville of Wood in Calgary, Canada

AFT Impulse, Production Platform in Gulf of Mexico

An Impulse model of a production platform in the Gulf of Mexico owned by a multinational oil and gas company. A variety of transient cases were required to be analyzed for the complex system exporting up to 140,000 BOE per day to a subsea pipeline network. The Primary Engineering Firm created a model of the system in AFT Fathom, and Wood used this model to verify the base  AFT Impulse model. A large number of complex junctions and features were utilized to simulate complex components, events, and system logic. The model contains 81 scenarios, analyzing a range of system operations including all pump start-up and shutdown, partial pump startup and shutdown, emergency shutdown, valve closures, flow path changes, and many combinations of the above. Additionally, both cavitation models were compared in many cases to check for consistency in results, increasing confidence. The complexity of the model is evident examining the junctions used - there are 20 check valves, all with reverse closure velocities, 6 control valves with rate limits and open percentage data, a gas accumulator, 6 pumps generally starting or tripping with speed vs time profiles, 10 pressure/pressure relief valves, and almost 80 valves, dozens of which have event-based transients and many which are based on realistic characteristics. The model was drawn in an isometric fashion to facilitate the ease of understanding the 153 applied Force Sets, which were used to export to stress analysis software. Various recommendations were obtained including: non-slam check valves, decrease in pump trip set points, increase in valve stroke times, specific operating procedures, and additional structural support. In some areas, these recommendations reduced pressure pulsation by 75% and forces by a comparable amount. The model contains 277 pipes, 247 junctions, and also makes use of Variable Pipe Resistance, Design Alerts, and Fittings & Losses.

• Arunkumar M, L&T Construction in Chennai, India

AFT Fathom with GSC, Cooling Water System for a Nuclear Fusion Project

A cooling water system containing hundreds of components needed hydraulic analysis to ensure all components met a maximum water pressure restriction. The heat transfer enabled Fathom model showed that the pressure restriction was met everywhere except for one set of components. Multiple options to reduce the pressure at this location were explored, including moving the heat exchangers, increasing line sizes, adding booster pumps, and both adding boosters along with moving the exchangers. Fathom allowed the easy comparison of various scenarios, control valve open percentage gave feedback on operation, and vapor detection allowed potential cavitation issues to be addressed. The model contains 6 scenarios, 898 pipes, and 788 junctions. This includes over 100 specified heat rate heat exchangers, over 225 correctly configured (spot checked) Detailed Tees, and over 200 valves. Also utilized in the model were Design Alerts and Fittings and Losses.

Correlation to Test/Field Data

• Daisy Ambach, Hatch in Dorking, United Kingdom

AFT Impulse, Hazard and Operability Study of Water Injection System

Project Description: The client completed a HAZOP study for one of its operational production facilities in the North Sea. The HAZOP committee were tasked to re-validate the design and operation of the production facility in accordance with regulatory requirements, identify any safety critical issues and recommend appropriate actions where necessary. They identified a range of actions related to relief and blowdown; piping; and flow assurance. During the HAZOP, it was noted that a surge analysis had not been conducted for the water injection system at the site. In case of a remote facility trip or a closure of a shutdown valve in the system, the committee identified that the only safeguard in place for pressure surges is the piping design pressure. Data being compared are measurements of pressure and flow during steady state analysis at key points such as the pumps and heat exchangers. On average a match of 8% match was found, with 13 % as the maximum difference and 0% as the minimum.

Operational Benefits and Sustainability

• Manas Karnure, Swapnil A. Paingankar, and Dhiresh Mahajan, Ingenero Technologies Pvt. Ltd. In Thane, India

AFT Fathom, Hot Oil Network at Petrochemical Facility

Project Description: It was envisaged that a hot oil network in a petrochemical facility owned by Ingenero’s client be examined to explore possible energy savings avenues. The preliminary understanding was that the network was being operated with high pump discharge pressure and the pressure drops across certain control valves were excessively high. The client wanted the energy optimization be carried out with least possible and ccost-effective configuration changes in the hot oil network. The focus of the hydraulic modeling was to reduce power consumption and make the operation energy efficient by focusing on pump energy consumption and control valve settings. The implementation of Ingenero’s recommendations resulted in 40% energy savings.

Applied Flow Technology is already accepting entries for the 2020 Platinum Pipe Award. Entry deadline is October 31, 2019.  To enter, or for more details, visit: https://www.aft.com/about-aft/platinum-pipe-award