It’s a New Decade, Baby – Let’s Go Solve Some Problems!

Happy New Year and Happy New Decade to all of you around the globe! As engineers, our society depends on us to help solve problems and make everyone's lives better. To provide power, water and heat are the basics. To provide transportation and communication are now critical technologies. Plus lots more.

The unfortunate truth is that in solving the problems of previous generations, sometimes we have created new problems. The focus on the future of our climate and environment is in the news constantly. Scientists and engineers are working hard to alleviate some of these problems.

One such effort is fusion power, which AFT software has been involved in (see Nuclear Fusion Project Successfully Completed with AFT Fathom and Recent Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Supported by AFT Arrow). Fusion power is considered the holy grail of power generation and the future of humankind.

Another effort is to clean up the undesirable environmental impacts of previous generation projects. AFT software has been used here as well such as AFT World War II Remnant: Nuclear Waste Transfer Lines Pressure Evaluation using AFT Fathom and AFT Impulse and Emissions Reduced at Commercial Power Plant Using AFT Arrow.

And finally, there are efforts to make our world safer. AFT software helps here as well as can be seen here Safety of Offshore Oil Rig Sea Water Injection System Validated With AFT Impulse and Dust Collection Systems Rebalanced After Manufacturing Facility Data Matches AFT Arrow Models. Along these lines, I have co-authored some technical papers for respected conferences on these topics such as Making the world a safer and better place – a plea for more data, validation cases and guidelines for waterhammer simulation and A Proposed Guideline for Applying Waterhammer Predictions Under Transient Cavitation Conditions Part 1: Pressures and Part 2: Imbalanced Forces.

Moving fluids is an integral part of modern society. Doing so safely and efficiently is the goal of every engineer. Let's take a moment at the beginning of this new decade to celebrate our achievements and contributions. Looking forward, let's go solve more problems and make our world better!