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.
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
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
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
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
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
It is well-known that valve closures and openings can cause waterhammer events. Because this is perhaps the most common cause of surge events, it is important to understand how to input valve transients and characteristics. Regarding both steady state characteristics and transient operations, there are some terms that we should clarify that may be
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
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
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
You may be asking yourself why we are advertising our Denver area User Group and first ever AFT Software Workshop in a Tips and Trick blog. Well that answer is quite simple really. As an ongoing effort to make the strongest relationship with our User’s and thus helping us to provide our community, which includes You, with the best tools ever, we ye
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
Engineers using AFT hydraulic software (Fathom, Arrow, and Impulse) know that they are utilizing powerful flow modeling tools capable of modeling real fluid behavior in simple and complex piping networks, but many are often unaware that our software also provides a vast array of customization options that can visually aid the user’s understanding o
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
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
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
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
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
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
One of the most common causes of waterhammer in pipelines is a valve closure. As the valve closes, the flowing liquid is forced to stop, resulting in a transfer of kinetic energy to potential energy, which ultimately causes a pressure increase. If this increase in pressure is large enough, extremely severe damage can result in the pipeline. Enginee
Scuba divers and casual swimmers alike are all too familiar with the discomfort (and sometimes outright pain) experienced in their ears as they descend deeper into the water. This discomfort is experienced for good reason: for each 33 feet you descend into the water, you experience considerably more pressure (about 1 whole atmosphere) due to the hy
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’
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
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
Users and potential users of AFT software frequently ask how they can expedite the model input process so that they can get the results they need as rapidly as they need. I’m pleased to report that AFT software has an abundance of features that make the model input process tremendously efficient: global pipe and junction editing, copying input data
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
Have you ever finished running an AFT Impulse model and then received the following Warning message shown in Figure 1 and then wondered what it means? During a waterhammer analysis, the flowrates are constantly changing all throughout the system, therefore, the velocities and Reynold's numbers are also constantly changing. The friction factor
In AFT Fathom and AFT Impulse, it is possible to model a submerged pump where a short and possibly frictionless suction pipe for the pump’s inlet does not need to be modeled. When modeling a submerged pump, there are two options available for specifying the system inlet boundary condition at the pump suction. As shown in Figure 1 below,
The annual letter from Bill and Melinda Gates to Warren Buffett was released just two days before I wrote this. In 2006, Warren Buffett made what will surely be the largest philanthropic donation by a single person in the foreseeable future. This helped to cause the resources available to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to explode overnight
What is a Pi-day without a Tips and Tricks blog? That's the $64,000 question today as you are undoubtedly preparing yourself three slices and a sliver of the delicious delicacy. Well the answer is, it's just not as great of a celebration as it could be; so today we are bringing you the scoop on modeling swing check vavles in AFT Impulse! Last month
As tech support engineers, we sometimes receive questions from users confused about what control valve characteristic curve (inherent or installed) they are inputting into AFT Fathom, AFT Arrow, or AFT Impulse. The inherent control valve characteristic curve plots the valve open percent versus the percent of maximum Cv. This curve is true regardles
To define any transient event in AFT Impulse or AFT Fathom XTS the application must know when it begins. To do so, the user should know how time and event logic is approached in AFT’s transient solvers. In this article, we will discuss the three different time bases used in the applications, the selection of a single or repeating event, and the man
There are many (six!) ways to define a pump transient event in AFT Impulse. This gives you great flexibility in creating a model that behaves the way you want it to. One thing true for all pumps is that they must be started at least once. Pump startups often cause significant transient effects on the system so you may wish to model this with AFT Im
For several users of AFT software, it goes pretty predictably: first you place a pressure junction, then maybe a pump, then some sources of pressure drop including valves and heat exchangers, and then the model is finished off with another pressure junction. Of course, this is greatly oversimplifying the process and the vast array of systems that a
Especially in Irma’s case, there was considerable discussion of the computer modeling used to predict the path and strength of the hurricane. As I have worked in computer modeling for most of my 30+ year career, this piqued my interest and I decided to educate myself a little more on the topic as it relates to hurricanes. The first resource I purs
The peak flow rate on the Space Shuttle deluge system was 900,000 gpm (200,000 m3/hr). That is not a typo! For reliability, the entire system is gravity driven from a 290 ft (88 m) tower. See photo below. Below, photo I took in 2013 of Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39 with Deluge System Tower at right AFT video which shows NASA Space Shuttle laun
How did I end up getting assigned this project? Well, I had a few things going for me at that stage of my career. Firstly was that my company division was on a massive hiring spree. Since I had been hired three years earlier my division had doubled in size. Fortuitously for me, that meant I was now in the upper 50% of seniority. Secondly, I had ju
In that we used Idelchik at both of my first two jobs, when I started AFT in 1993 I assumed that everyone knew about and used Idelchik. I found out that was not the case. If you have not heard of Idelchik's handbook, it is voluminous at 861 pages. It has by far the best information available on how to calculate pressure losses in tees and wyes. An
There are three Pipe Drawing Modes available on the Arrange menu: 2D Freeform, 2D Orthogonal, and Isometric. Figure 1: Pipe Drawing Modes available on the Arrange menu Figure 1 shows the differences between the three Pipe Drawing Modes. The 2D Freeform mode will place a pipe on the Workspace as drawn. The 2D Orthogonal mode will segment the pipe o
In recent years, engineering efforts have been increasingly focused on analyzing and preventing detrimental pulsations in pipelines. One major source of these pulsations is caused by acoustical resonance. Undesirable acoustical resonance happens when pressure pulses (the source of which is often a positive displacement pump) excite the system's nat
AFT software graphic Tip: If you know how to use AFT Fathom, then you are over the learning curve by about 90%when it comes to knowing how to use AFT Arrow, and about 80% of how to use AFT Impulse. One of the best advantages to AFT software tools is they offer a full solution for any single-phase pipe flow analysis calculations.Whether you
Hello AFT readers! It has been quite a while since I have written a blog for you all. I had a recent discussion with a user and discovered a couple pain points that may be common. We did not have any blogs on the topics yet and I figured it was time to get back in the game and write another blog for our readers! The pain points were: 1. Modeling sy
It is true. New Jersey is a barrier in Spain. I saw it with my own eyes. Bear with me and I will explain. When I travel internationally I find the people, cultural and language differences fascinating. Last month I was fascinated once again. My blog last month was written while on an airplane as I travelled to Europe (see my July blog When Pipe Str
We've previously discussed how to make input data changes in AFT Models using the Excel Change Data feature on other blogs, but since we are continuously asked about expedited ways to input and change data, we've updated our feature to make things even easier. AFT Software has an abundance of features that make the model input process tremendously
Seeing as this month is water month, we thought this would be a perfect time to highlight some of the great ways that AFT Fathom 10 can help with hydraulic analysis for water distribution, wastewater, and fire water systems. From building the model to exporting and presenting results, we offer several helpful features. We have heard our users
Here at Applied Flow Technology we like to make things easy for our end users. That is why AFT Products have been developed not only to give you accurate and reliable results but to save you time as well. Let's talk about the "Start Batch Run..." feature.What does this feature do?Let's imagine you have a model with many scenarios and you need to ru
Establishing and maintaining an electrical grid is a monumental task spanning many professions and disciplines. Fluid dynamics plays an important role in nearly any method of power generation. Between ensuring safety, reliable production of power, and minimizing operational costs, there are countless ways that modeling fluid flow can
When completing the analysis on a model, there is nothing more frustrating than having to do the same thing over and over again. Thankfully, using AFT's Piping Layout Wizard you will no longer need to rebuild your CAD, CAESAR II, and EPANET files to analyze the hydraulics using AFT Fathom, AFT Arrow, and AFT Impulse. In addition to GIS sh
AFT Impulse 7 has several different tools to analyze waterhammer, including several new features such as Visual Report Animation. This tool offers a new method to understand how different sections in a network interact with each other allowing users to quickly locate points of interest for further analysis, and visually demonstrate the system
¿Alguna vez te has hecho esta pregunta? Hace unos meses atrás estando a cargo del soporte de AFT recibí la llamada de un cliente que se encontraba en la búsqueda de una aplicación que automáticamente le ayudara a determinar la ubicación de su bomba o sistema de bombeo (principal e impulsoras) en su sistema de tuberías. Los productos AFT han sido de
To all of the engineers reading this article, we made it! Whew! Reading a three-part series is like running a marathon. Way to go!If you are new to this series, we encourage you to read this article as well as the previous two: Part 1: Six Reasons to Use a Flow Analysis and Part 2: Flow Analysis Is Neglected. In this article are six reasons en
AFT uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience and analyze site traffic. By using our website, you consent to our use of cookies. For more information, view the AFT Privacy Policy.