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.
AFT strives to make our interface intuitive and user-friendly, but we know that pipe flow modeling can be complex. That's why the AFT team have worked to put together the AFT documentation portal, a new centralized place to find all of our help resources for AFT Fathom, AFT Arrow, AFT Impulse, and AFT xStream. Here's a quick summary of what you can
Unnecessary Background Codes and standards are not sexy topics, nor are they liked by the rebellious at heart. Whether you love or hate them they are a part of the world and aim to make it a safer place. One of the largest organizations to compose standards is the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). They have been around since the
Having some trouble getting your modelling under control? This blog will discuss some tips on how to properly use a control valve in AFT Fathom and how to interpret some common control valve warnings. For simplicity this blog will primarily discuss control valves in the context of AFT Fathom. However, the concepts discussed in this blog also apply
Pumps and turbines may serve opposite purposes, but fundamentally, they operate under the same principles. Both pieces of equipment convert between usable work and fluid energy, and both often use an impeller to make the conversion.Differences between the two pieces of equipment quickly start to appear as they are examined with more detail. A pump
Many AFT users have come across the message that a reference pressure is needed when attempting to run a model but do not often know how to handle it. Why is it showing up? What can they do to fix the issue? Before going too far, it is important to understand the problem is a limitation of physics and math, not of AFT software. We will wo
Ensuring your pump has sufficient net positive suction head available (NPSHA) is essential to reliable pump performance. For positive displacement pumps, this includes accounting for acceleration head, which will reduce a pump's NPSHA.What is acceleration head? Acceleration head is the energy required to change the velocity of the liquid in the sys
Sometimes design engineers will install a screen to protect equipment like centrifugal pumps. Screens are available in a variety of configurations, each with its own head loss characteristics. AFT Fathom provides a screen junction that allows users to choose from four different screen types: Perforated Plate (Sharp-Edged) Perforated Plate (Round-Ed
Users occasionally contact AFT saying they have lost their model files or cannot open them. Can you imagine spending hours, days, or months building models, and all of a sudden, the progress and work is gone?! If it happens right before a deadline, the engineer will most likely have a minor panic attack, and feelings of anger, depression, or hopele
As process engineers, we rarely review our own engineering process for improvement opportunities. Our job descriptions can often boil down to: "design this", "build that", and "make it better". While we can do this very well for pumps, pipelines, and flanges, sometimes we miss the intangibles such as how to improve our team's internal processes or
In April I became old. I mean really, really old. I might even be called ancient. But not as ancient as the Romans. You see, in April I had my 60th birthday. The day fell a week short of a twice-delayed waterhammer conference held in The Netherlands.When my wife asked me what I wanted to do for my 60th birthday, I responded "Since we will already b
September 14. That is the day I consider to be AFT's official birthday. In 1993 I resigned from my job in the power industry and started working on AFT Fathom 1.0 full-time that day. Thirty years ago today I was assembling a business plan and figuring out how I could finance the founding of AFT.I have found myself reflecting a lot this year – on AF
We recently discussed the new features coming out in AFT Fathom 13 and AFT Impulse 10. Now let's talk about the compressible gas and steam side of the product launches. You may be more familiar with AFT Fathom, as it is our flagship incompressible steady state analysis product. AFT Arrow is its counterpart for compressible steady sta
The Annotation Tool has new shapes and customization options which will help you organize, markup, comment, and effectively present your models when using the new versions of Fathom 13, Arrow 10, Impulse 10, and xStream 3. In addition to the pre-existing rectangles and ellipses, you can now add diamonds, pentagons, hexagons, octagons, clouds, trian
Classically, hydraulic loss tends to be categorized as major losses, which are due to friction between the fluid and the pipe's inner surface, and minor losses, which are due to entrances, exits, fittings, and other component effects. Losses due to friction tend to have a greater impact on the hydraulic resistance and this could be the main reason
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