AFT Blog

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 perform these estimates which makes things much easier and efficient!! First step is to enter pump curve data and generate the curve fits as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 :  Pump Performance Curve from Entered Data   Next, click on the "Transient" tab...

2013 Platinum Pipe Award Winner - Correlation to test/field data   Schuyler Engineering was asked to confirm a 2010 study that recommended that Rockland Psychiatric Center convert to using low pressure steam. Modifications would cost over one million dollars, so constructing a model would give further confidence to the previous study and determine if the conversion to low pressure steam should proceed.      Click here to read the case study and learn how AFT Arrow test results validated previous study results .   Schuyler Engineering is a professional consulting firm specializing in the evaluation, engineering, design, permitting and construction supervision...

AFT Impulse 5 now includes a second cavitation model option: The Discrete Gas cavity Model (DGCM). So, what is it and how is it different from the existing cavitation model? This article will provide a very high level overview. The method of characteristics (the finite difference basis for 1D transient flow modeling) assumes a constant wave speed for each pipe, from time step to time step. There are, however, many things that would cause a change in wave speed; cavitation being one the most significant. A change in wave speed will have a dramatic effect on the pressure spike that occurs...

AFT Applications have the ability to display the output in different languages. We supply files for French and Spanish with our installation which should be used. Other language files can be created using the language.dat file template. To select a new language select Output Language from the Tool menu and then select the language you would like to use. Once a new language is selected the Output Control will reflect the output parameters in that language. When the model is run and the results will be displayed in the Output tab in the selected language. The Graph Results and Visual Report...

One of my favorite lines from the movie Apollo 13 was when an engineer exclaimed, “Power is everything!”. Nothing happens without power. Power, the rate at which energy is used, underlies everything in modern society. Trends in energy economics are impacting industries and entire nations. Some recent articles about European chemical production and refining illustrate this.   EU chemical industry on the verge of collapse   from Processing Magazine 2013 "The European chemical industry is in grave danger and a large part of it might close down within the next 10 years… The biggest problem is that chemical manufacturing is heavily...

It is always interesting to see items in the news where our software has played a role. Last week a breakthrough in nuclear research was achieved at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 's (LLNL)  National Ignition Facility (NIF). According to science journal Nature, "Using the world's most powerful assembly of lasers, a team of researchers say they have, for the first time, extracted more energy from controlled nuclear fusion than was absorbed by the fuel to trigger it — crossing an important symbolic threshold on the long path toward exploiting this virtually boundless source of energy." The full news article from Nature can be found...

You have just finished designing your system and built a model of your system in AFT Fathom and have convinced your team and the client that the system will achieve all the desired pressures, flow rates, and temperatures.  The next big question is, “How much will this system cost?”  With AFT Fathom , you have the ability to answer that question in great detail! You can easily determine the full cost of pipe materials and system components!  Not only that, but you can quickly figure out how much it will cost to install and operate the entire system!   You will even...