AFT Blog
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.
Coming Soon To a Computer Screen Near You: AFT Impulse 5 - Act Now To Get New Features at Old Prices
Want to know what new features are coming? Read on! Waterhammer Modeling of Slurry Pipe Flow AFT Impulse 5 will offer a new add-on SSL module for modeling slurry flow in piping systems. Why is this important? The AFT Impulse 5 SSL module will offer the first commercially available waterhammer modeling of settling slurry piping systems. The slur
From There to Here - The History of AFT Impulse Up Through the New Version 5
From the very beginning AFT Impulse was a world leader. AFT Impulse was first released in November, 1996 which made it the first visual, drag-and-drop waterhammer modeling software for Microsoft Windows (see below). AFT Impulse 1 in 1996 - the First Graphical Waterhammer Software for Windows Those of you who are familiar with AFT Impulse today a
Now For Something Completely Different: The New Graph Guide in AFT Impulse 6
As we started to test the new graphing features we were concerned that users would struggle to access these features. So we came up with an idea that turned into the Graph Guide. What is the Graph Guide, you ask? Well, in simple terms the Graph Guide is an interactive, hierarchical guide built into the Graph Results window which assists the user
AFT Impulse 20th Anniversary: A Perspective From the Original Impulse Developer
The day-to-day demands of getting AFT going as a company was slowing down the completion of AFT Impulse. So I turned over the day-to-day tasks to the two engineers I had at the time. One of the two, Jeff Olsen, is still with AFT as V.P. Technology. I took my computer and huge CRT monitor home to work in my basement for some long and uninterrupted
How AFT Impulse Can Help Engineers Comply With ASME Codes
Summary Engineers are often responsible to design systems to comply with codes and standards. In recent years codes that apply to waterhammer and surge pressures have become more prominent. Increasingly AFT Impulse is being used to help engineers comply with such codes. Once AFT Impulse has calculated the maximum pressure due to a transient event,
Estimating Pump Inertia, Specific Speed, and Four Quadrant Data within AFT Impulse 5
An excellent new feature of AFT Impulse 5 is that it is possible to estimate the pump inertia, specific speed, and four quadrant data sets directly within AFT Impulse 5! No more need to perform external spreadsheet calculations for these estimates. In addition to that, AFT Impulse 5 can use the entered pump and power/efficiency curve to perfo
Using Liquid Accumulators in AFT Impulse
Many engineers are familiar with gas accumulators and their ability to aid in surge suppression modeled in AFT Impulse, but what about liquid accumulators? Liquid accumulators are different from gas accumulators in that they are assumed to be liquid full and do not have any gas that can compress and expand in order to dampen pressure spikes caused
Taking the Pulse of Fluid Systems: Introducing the New AFT Impulse PFA Module
The problem is not whether pulsation is steady-state or transient. It is whether the frequencies that are excited by the pulsation are at or near the acoustic resonant frequencies of the fluid system. If so, there can be problems. API 674 defines the allowable pulsation limits for positive displacement pumps. AFT will soon release the new PFA modu
What Do the New AFT Impulse 7 and Bordeaux, France Have in Common?
I think this is the third monthly blog article I have written this year from an airplane over the Atlantic Ocean. Truly I do not save my monthly blogs for airplanes. I am really busy most all the time these days. Being on an international flight means having a long, forced time disconnected from the Internet and more free time than normal to write.
Applying Communication Time: Let’s Talk About Your Impulse Result/Event Relationships
I have received questions from clients using AFT Impulse where they ask something like"I closed this valve. Why is the maximum pressure spike way over there and not at the valve?"This comes from years of developing a "common sense" adapted to steady-state flow. With steady flow, a change between states of equilibrium has a local effect that t
Multi-scenario graphing and animation in AFT Impulse
Really? Another blog about features in AFT software?Yes, really. And there is a good reason for it. Because this new feature in AFT Impulse 8 will change your life. Well, it may not change your life, but it will forever change how you do your waterhammer analysis. I am talking about the new multi-scenario graphing and animation feature. This brand,
AFT Impulse: A Quarter Century as a World Leader
A few weeks ago, a major milestone was passed when AFT Impulse experienced it's Silver Jubilee - which is another word for 25th Anniversary. On November 21, 1996, AFT released the world's first visual waterhammer modeling software for Windows. This is significant for a few reasons including a reminder to me that I am getting really old! At the mome
New Features Coming Soon to AFT Fathom & AFT Impulse
We've been working hard to bring users a wide range of functions from more intuitive menus and interfaces to new ways to present model data. In total, there are more than 25 new features and enhancements that will be released in the coming months.While all four of our primary products will be released very closely together, below is the list for A
Should Engineers Always Perform Waterhammer Analysis of New Pipe Systems?
One of the issues complicating this question is that waterhammer events have a tendency to be non-intuitive. Thus even experienced engineers using intuition can be led astray. I am reminded of a story one of our AFT Impulse customers told us about ten years ago. The engineer was an experienced waterhammer engineer and was fairly new to using AFT I
Rockets are Pumping Systems Too - The Aerospace Heritage of AFT
Jeff and I worked together at General Dynamics Space Systems Division in San Diego, California in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I worked there from 1986-1992 on cryogenic rockets on what came to be known as the Atlas I, Atlas II, Atlas IIA and Atlas IIAS. These Atlas rockets had an Atlas booster rocket which was fueled by room temperature RP-1
When Pipe Stress Analysis Meets Waterhammer Hydraulics: New Waterhammer Guidelines for Engineers
I am sitting on an airplane at this moment somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and I am excited. Something that has been in the works for 22 years will happen next Monday, July 16 in Prague, Czech Republic. That is where the ASME PVP 2018 Conference will happen and I get to make a presentation.Last year I helped AECOM, an AFT customer and AFT Impulse
And, Not, Or - Starting Transient Events with Complex Logic
AFT Fathom XTS and AFT Impulse have long been able to start events like pump trips or valve closures when a certain condition is met in the system. For example, a valve can close when a tank is full, or a pump can trip when the flow is too low. However, complex systems often have multiple conditions that can cause an event. The pump may trip when t
A Story About Fluid Communication
Jack, Ryan, and Sally are piloting a small research vessel on a remote river. While distracted by news of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (successful landing!), their vessel crashes and begins capsizing. After their initial panic, they are dismayed to find the collision has taken out their communications equipment.In some quick thinking, Jack find
Safety
As President of AFT, I often hear from our customers about how one of AFT's software products has helped them solve a problem or made their lives easier. Sometimes I'll notice something in the news and think how AFT's products COULD have helped avoid a problem. Every month, I'd like to share these insights with you in hopes that we can all work tog
Where Did the Name "Fathom" Come From?
The story behind the Fathom name is intimately tied to the story behind the founding of Applied Flow Technology as a company. So let's go back to 1993. AFT Fathom started as a hobby in 1992 while I was working in the power industry as a research engineer. But it was not named Fathom and I was not planning to start a company. As a hobby, I was plan
AFT Around the World
In early October, I conducted a 5-day training seminar in Lima, Peru. There were seven different companies represented from Peru and Chile. It is always interesting to see the variety of applications for AFT software and Peru was no exception where many of the engineers are involved in mining operations. Peru is a leading producer of copper, gold,
My 50th Anniversary Visit to the Site of John Glenn’s First American Flight Into Space
By good fortune the NASA contractors at Kennedy Space Center had scheduled an AFT training class last week, and I traveled to Florida to teach the class. I took some time to tour the Space Center and Cape Canaveral one evening and was able to visit Complex 14 where the launch took place. The rocket booster for Friendship 7 was a General Dynamics A
May the Force Be With You: Evaluating Unbalanced Forces Caused by Waterhammer
A common task among pipe stress engineers is to evaluate loads on pipe systems caused by waterhammer. Since AFT Impulse 4.0 was released our users have had the ability to calculate waterhammer-induced unbalanced forces for use in any pipe stress analysis application. In addition, our users can create specially formatted transfer files for direct us
AFT Fathom 8 and the Future of AFT
What does all of this mean for the future? The new, more modern look and feel of AFT Fathom 8 is based on a new underlying architecture. We will be working hard to move all of our other products to this architecture as quickly as possible. Our best guess is that AFT Impulse 5 will be available in first quarter of 2013 and AFT Arrow 5 will be avail
World Languages and Waterhammer
For those who are not familiar with waterhammer, it is a transient phenomenon that occurs in liquid pipe systems when some event causes a departure from steady-state flow. The English language term waterhammer is a bit confusing. As it has the word "water" in it, it implies a process involving water. But the English term has historically been appl
What do NASA, DuPont, GDF Suez and the University of Arkansas know about AFT software that you may not? Watch it here!
DuPont The first story talks about how AFT Fathom helped DuPont solve a serious operational problem in three newly designed slurry systems. I co-authored a technical paper along with DuPont's Dan Wood to describe this to industry. AFT Impulse Video NASA The second story is about how AFT Impulse has been used by engineers at NASA's Kennedy Sp
Why You Should Care About AFT's New User Groups
If you answered yes to any of the above, you may want to look into attending an AFT User Group meeting. Last October we held our first User Group meeting in Houston. We had 24 attendees. The consensus was that there was a desire among AFT software users that User Group meetings be held regularly. As a result, we have another Houston User Group me
Who Cares About the Surge in "Funny" Fluids?
Funny, non-Newtonian fluids are often broken into two categories: Homogeneous fluids which encompasses non-settling slurries where the fluid and solids behave in an aggregate, homogeneous manner Heterogeneous fluids which encompasses settling slurries where the fluid and solids behave somewhat independently The applications where non-Newtonian fl
The Two P's: Why You Should Care That AFT is Celebrating Its 20th Year
First is because 20 years in business means that AFT software is proven.Second is because of the prizes we are giving away this year. Twenty of them no less!Come along with me while I elaborate on what AFT has achieved in the last 20 years. And explain more about the two P's.A Vision for the VisualThe last 20 years has been a long and exciting jou
Making Use of the Quick Access Panel
With the release of AFT Fathom 8 and AFT Impulse 5, there is an incredibly useful new feature available on the Workspace called the "Quick Access Panel". This feature allows you to quickly and easily work with several useful features of the software in one area such as the Scenario Manager, Pipe and Junction Inspection, Workspace Overview Map
Why Gases Are More Complicated Than Liquids: And How the New AFT Arrow 5 Can Help
Today it is no longer necessary to take short cuts. But all too often we see engineers doing just that. AFT Arrow is AFT's gas flow simulation software and it will be celebrating its 20th anniversary next year. Just last week I had a conversation with an AFT Arrow user from a well known engineering firm who was required by a client to use gas mode
When Pipe Flow Modeling Is Not Enough
Over the years I have attended many conferences, forums, technical committees and customer meetings where I have met many engineers with different areas of domain expertise. These domains include vibration measurements and analysis of pumps, statistical reliability and MTBF analysis of pumps, analysis of installed pump instrumentation, variable fr
Reference Densities for Pump Operation
You have just received a pump curve from a manufacturer to use in modeling your piping system. However, the pump manufacturer only tested their pump with water while your system fluid has a density that is different than water. These differences need to be accounted for with your flow model as well. This may sound like a bit of a daunting task u
What About Viscosity Corrections?
Previously, I wrote an article that discussed how to account for density differences between a pump manufacturer's test fluid and a system fluid for pumps as well as the importance, https://www.aft.com/blog/entry/2014/12/02/reference-densities-for-pump-operation. Both AFT Fathom and AFT Impulse can take into account these density differences
AFT 20th Anniversary Conclusion: Prizes, Awards and the Future of AFT
Congratulations to all the lucky winners! AFT has a hard earned reputation for excellence in our products and our technical support. For the next 20 years we plan to build on that reputation. Here are some things to keep an eye out for from AFT this year: The release of AFT Fathom 9 with a host of new features The release of AFT Impulse 6 with a
Should Engineers Always Perform Waterhammer Analysis of New Pipe Systems? Part 2
Last month I was teaching an AFT Impulse training seminar and this same question came up during the class from an astute attendee. However, the question came more from a pipe stress engineer's perspective. And I realized that the answer to the question is not necessarily the same for a pipe stress engineer. Thus came the idea to write a Part 2 to
Is the Pipe Half Full or Half Empty?
Well that depends on how optimistic you are, but either way you can model partially full pipes with AFT Impulse! This means partially full along the axial direction, as opposed to partially full along the radial direction. This function only works for pipes that have a slope, and when the pipe is partially full it drains from the end with the highe
Making the Most of Your Extra Time
But you can find extra time in other ways that do not depend an calendar adjustments. That time is found by accomplishing your assigned engineering tasks in less time. And that is where AFT software can and does help engineering companies in 70+ countries around the world. Below is a list of the top five ways AFT software saves engineers time: Top
Mars, Martians and the Marvelous March to Space
Perhaps a good place to start is this video I highly recommend watching - "Guys build amazing 7-mile-long model of the solar system, to scale". As I watched the video it brought back vivid memories of grade school for me. My amazing teachers had the wonderful idea to setup a solar system on the playground where kids held a picture of each planet a
Behold The New Design Alert Manager!
One of the newest features of AFT Fathom 9 that will add a lot more efficiency to analyzing your results is the new Design Alert Manager! In addition to the new Design Alert Manager, it is also possible to add general Design Alerts for junctions such as inlet or outlet pressure, or perhaps the pressure loss across a junction. In previous versions
Goodbye Graph Sets! Hello New Graph List Manager!!
AFT software products have had powerful graphing capabilities for a very long time. Many types of graphs can be created with AFT products such as pump vs. system curves, profile plots along a flow path, gradelines and elevation profiles, transient plots (with AFT Impulse or the AFT Fathom XTS module), slurry system curves (with AFT Fathom SSL or A
What Good is a Map Without Colors?
Each AFT software product employs five Primary Window tabs in which you would build, define, and analyze the model of your system. Of these, the Visual Report window is incredibly useful in that you are able to overlay your model input or output parameters directly on top of the graphical layout of the system itself. This is an excellent feature
How Does AFT Software Make the World a Safer Place?
The first and most obvious way that AFT software makes the world safer is that our software products help engineers test their designs and operations on their computers where the impact of failure is eliminated. While this is invaluable, it is a bit abstract. So let's get more specific and highlight some applications where safety is impacted. RELI
What Would You Like to Do? – Exploring the New Graph Guide
The primary way to view results when using Impulse is through graphical data. With the release of AFT Impulse 6, the power of the graphing features has been greatly increased. With this enhanced capability comes additional complexity. It is a kin to the power and complexity of in-dash radio consoles in modern cars compared to the old stereo in my o
Things Are Really Stacking Up – Creating Stacked Graphs
Using graphs that are stacked on top of each other is a great way to see the variation of several parameters at once and how one interacts with the others. There are several ways to create stacked graphs using the new graphing features in AFT applications, which I will cover here. I am going to start with the AFT Impulse model, ‘Pump Startup With E
Seeing Double – Using Dual Y-Axis Graphs
Previously, we talked about the Graph Guide and how to create Stacked Graphs. Another way to see the interactions between parameters is to show them on one graph with dual Y-axes and a common X-axis scale. I am going to again start with the AFT Impulse model, ‘Pump Startup With Event Transient.imp’, which is installed in the Examples folder, and us
The World in Motion - Understanding Results Through Animated Graphs
Previously, we talked about the Graph Guide and how to create Stacked Graphs and Dual-Y graphs. With AFT Impulse and with AFT Fathom’s XTS module, a great way to see how parameters change over time is through animated graphs. For the purpose of continuity, I am going to again start with the AFT Impulse model, ‘Pump Startup With Event Transient.imp’
(Almost) Live Report From the HUUUUGE MINExpo in Las Vegas
Over the years I have had the privilege to teach training classes to mining companies on five continents. AFT has been active in support of the needs of the mining industry since we released the Settling Slurry (SSL) module for AFT Fathom in 2009 and the SSL module for AFT Impulse in 2012. That is aside from our general support for utility piping
Inside, Outside, On Top Of and Behind the Incredible Hoover Dam
One outcome of that mistake is that I have rarely, if ever, missed another chance to go on a technical tour. Another outcome is that I have been trying to fit in a Hoover Dam visit ever since. I have been to or through Las Vegas (about 45 minutes from Hoover Dam) probably 30 times since then. But I could never find that half-day I needed to visit
Getting the Perfect Picture – Graph Formatting Options
Previously, we talked about the Graph Guide, creating Stacked graphs and Dual-Y graphs, and visualizing the results using Animated graphs. This final installment will focus on the various ways to format graphs so they are exactly how you want them to look. In general, there are several ways to set the formatting for the various parts and regions of