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.

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...

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Waterhammer: In our Booth?

What booth and why does it have waterhammer? Come find out! In a few weeks, AFT and yours truly will be at the Turbomachinery and Pump Symposia (TPS) in Houston – September 10-12 to be precise. We will have a booth (#2824 for those who are coming). And we will have waterhammer. Not just waterhammer software. We have that every year and, as in previ...

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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...

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A Trillion Dollar Waterhammer Problem? Oh My!

An article published this month in the AWWA Opflow trade magazine relates that America has a trillion dollar problem with our municipal water distribution system due to pipe failures. This information is old news to the water industry. What is novel about this article is that it suggests the issue is largely caused by waterhammer (see Stop Costly W...

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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 user, develop a set of pragmatic internal design documents for their project on handling radioactive fluid transport. Two of these documents provided their engineers guidance on interpreting and applying transient cavitation predictions. 

We proposed these two documents to the ASME PVP Division and they liked them enough to allow us to publish two new papers at their conference. I will be presenting these papers on behalf of AECOM and AFT.

But why I am so excited about this?
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What is Pogo and Why On Earth Would Anyone Want To Suppress It?

The time was almost 30 years ago and it is fair to say I was not quite out of the "still wet behind the ears" stage for an engineer. I had been working in industry for about three years and I was just given a project that would change my career direction and, in fact, my life. The project? I was assigned to evaluate a new concept Pogo suppressor on a cryogenic rocket engine liquid oxygen (LOX) feedline. 

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The Knowledge Quest: Connecting With Fluids Education at Universities

This week was not a typical week for me. For the first time in 30 years I found myself in not one, not two, but three university classrooms. Each classroom was in one of Colorado's excellent engineering schools.

I had a chance to come face-to-face with about 140 students in classrooms this week and several professors. A number of positive things came of the week which I will summarize below.

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