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.

Gas and Steam Transient Analysis is Freaking Hard!

Whew! That was a lot of hard work! As of Monday, April 12, 2021, AFT xStream™ is loaded up and ready to go. And to help you simulate things you have only guessed at before. When we engaged Fred Moody a few years ago to teach a short course at AFT that covered compressible gas and steam transients, we were not certain a commercial quality product co...

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Line Packing: Recovering the Irrecoverable

Have you ever been working on an interesting project where you get into the zone by picking up so much momentum in the work you are doing? But then, all of a sudden you hit a brick wall in your progress and cannot help but feel the pain of all that momentum coming to a screeching halt? You are not alone, in fact, fluids experience something ve...

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Will Hydrogen Be Our Future?

All of a sudden it seems that everyone is talking about hydrogen - that wonderful, light-weight gas or liquid (see the Apollo mission Saturn rocket and Space Shuttle) which has the unfortunate tendency to explode (see Hindenburg). In my first engineering job, I was fortunate to work with both gaseous hydrogen as well as cryogenic liquid hydrogen. A...

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A Story About Fluid Communication

Jack, Ryan, and Sally are piloting a small research vessel on a remote river. While distracted by news of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (successful landing!), their vessel crashes and begins capsizing. After their initial panic, they are dismayed to find the collision has taken out their communications equipment.

In some quick thinking, Jack finds a printed log of ships expected to be nearby. Fortunately, there is a marine zoology expedition about a mile downriver, and our crew just needs to get an SOS out to that ship.

Initially, Jack tries simply yelling for help. Unfortunately, this doesn't do much good - and the explanation why requires some fluid mechanics.

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Nuclear Power to the Rescue!

When I was in high school (four decades ago!) I had an awesome physics teacher in my junior year, Mr. Kindred. His class was a key influence in my decision to pursue a career in mechanical engineering. I recall Mr. Kindred discussing the future of fusion power and commenting, as was common at that time, that "fusion power is 20 years away". Well, h...

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Non-Newtonian Fluids - How to Model the Soap, Silly-Putty, or Shampoo in Your Pipe Network

Non-Newtonian fluids are something almost every elementary school student is familiar with. Mixing cornstarch and water to create a liquid that acts as a solid is an experiment which has captured the attention of children (and adults) for generations. The Discovery Channel show Mythbusters even showed Adam Savage walking across a tub of cornstarch ...

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Cloudy With a Chance of Herd Immunity

COVID-19 has impacted us all in some way or another. This has forced most all of us to change how we do things – including our jobs. More than ever before, we have needed the Cloud. Despite my best efforts to avoid it, I caught the COVID-19 virus in late November. I was working from home at the time, as were most of the AFT staff. The Cloud enabled...

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