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Welcome to the Applied Flow Technology Blog where you will find the latest news and training on how to use AFT Fathom, AFT Arrow, AFT Impulse, AFT xStream and other AFT software products.
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Gas and Steam Transient Analysis is Freaking Hard!

Whew! That was a lot of hard work!

As of Monday, April 12, 2021, AFT xStream™ is loaded up and ready to go. And to help you simulate things you have only guessed at before.

When we engaged Fred Moody a few years ago to teach a short course at AFT that covered compressible gas and steam transients, we were not certain a commercial quality product could even be done. But we are AFT and we do things no one has ever done before. So this was right up our alley!

Fred's book Introduction to Unsteady Thermofluid Mechanics has a slick calculation method based on the venerable Method of Characteristics (MOC) to calculate gas and steam transient flow. We implemented his method and are seeing some surprising results. Expect to see a series of conference and possibly journal papers from myself and other AFT staff starting next year that will detail some of the surprises. For now, you should know that some of your past "conservative" design practices may not be conservative at all.

It was 27 years ago yesterday on April 12, 1994, that a scrappy startup company in the basement of my home released AFT Fathom, the first graphical pipe flow analysis product for Microsoft Windows. And now, 27 years ago later to the day, AFT has released another "first of its kind" product in AFT xStream. AFT xStream is our first completely new software product in 18 years. We have released a lot of new things and new add-on modules during that time. But not an entirely new product.

You can read about it all in our web page product info, but in a nutshell, AFT xStream can accurately simulate acoustic transients in gas and steam piping. It can simulate steam hammer in turbine feed systems and the resulting imbalanced transient forces on piping. It also can simulate the disrupted supply conditions to gas turbines or compressors when a parallel unit trips off. Its ability to simulate moving shock waves is very cool.

Right from the start AFT xStream comes ready to also help you simulate gas system pulsation with its PFA module. Yes, it can determine the natural frequencies in your gas piping system so you can better solve those pesky vibration problems.

Being on the cutting edge is in our DNA here at AFT. We are looking forward to helping you improve your work processes, designs, and facility operations. To help solve gas and steam flow and pulsation problems better than ever before. 

The Eductor Educator
Line Packing: Recovering the Irrecoverable

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Thursday, 28 March 2024
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