AFT Blog

It was an honor to visit our friends in Beijing, China to provide our Channel Partner, AECsoft Engineering Software (AECSOFT), two days of complimentary workshops. During these workshops, attendees had a hands-on experience with AFT Software as well the opportunity to discuss relevant hydraulic topics. Each attendee also received a 15-day free trial license to review topics discussed in the workshop. The first workshop, held August 21-22, hosted 65 attendees from twenty-nine companies. The workshop focused heavily on technical orientation to the AFT software.         The second workshop, held August 24-25, was dedicated exclusively to the biggest...

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 are modeled with AFT software, but here’s my point: most users are more familiar with modeling open systems that include individual pressure junctions located both upstream and downstream of the system. But what about modeling closed systems? The truth is that modeling...

Computers currently cannot think like an engineer. That is probably a good thing, but sometimes it can get us in trouble. Many of us rely on computers daily not just for fun or leisure, but for our livelihoods. They connect us in ways previous generations never thought possible and augment our mental abilities especially in terms of performing complex calculations and modeling intricate systems. Knowing this, it is important to remember that no matter how slick the user interface or how advanced the underlying code is, a computer program is only going to take what you give and process it...

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 Impulse. Even narrowing your pump transient down to a startup, there are still four models left to choose from: Without Inertia Startup With Inertia and No Back Flow or Reverse Speed Startup With Inertia...

Unknown to me, a few weeks ago I was sitting across from a Brazilian hydroelectric engineer on an airplane flying across Brazil. His name was Roberto and he did not speak English. I myself was learning the basic Portuguese phrases but that was the extent of my language skills. I was traveling with my son (an engineering student himself) who was spending the southern winter (i.e., northern summer) working in São Paulo, Brazil. My son had learned to speak Portuguese amazingly well and struck up a conversation with Roberto. That was when he found out Roberto was a civil engineer who used to work in hydroelectric power.

I have to confess that until that day a few weeks ago I had never heard of the Itaipu Dam - the largest hydroelectric facility in the Americas and, until a few years ago, the largest in the world. Roberto and his family were planning to tour the dam as part of their trip to the area where the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet. When we landed my son and I hatched the idea to rent a car and see if we could get in on a dam tour ourselves.

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 many possible triggering events that can start the user defined transient. The user defines these items in the Initiation of Transient section of the junction’s Transient tab. The requirements for each junction can vary, but the general approach...

In February I reached a new low. Up until that point, my lowest point happened as a child in my home state of California. That was when my father took me through Death Valley - elevation 282 ft (86 m) below sea level.

But this was different. I was not going to the lowest spot in North or South America (Death Valley). I was going to the lowest spot in the entire world. I was on my way to the Dead Sea. Located on the border between Israel and Jordan (see my personal photos below), the Dead Sea is at an elevation of 1412 ft (431 m) below sea level - and getting lower all the time as it further evaporates.