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.
The Opposite of Good Vibrations - Evaluating FIV, AIV, FIP Guidelines from AFT Fathom and AFT Arrow
Learn how to use AFT Fathom and AFT Arrow to help calculate the Likelihood of Failure (LOF) for Flow Induced Vibration (FIV), Acoustic Induced Vibration (AIV), and Flow Induced Pulsation (FIP) in accordance with Energy Institute Guidelines to avoid v...
What Is Transient Analysis?
You're tasked to perform a transient analysis of a piping system and it would be really helpful if there was a good software tool out there to help you. Well, you've come to the right place because AFT has great solutions! ...
Know Your Pump & System Curves - Part 3
In the final "Know Your Pump & System Curves" blog series, I am going to discuss the complexities behind pump vs. system curves for systems with pumps in series and parallel configurations. Multiple pumps in series configurations are relatively s...
Digital Twin – Identical or Fraternal?
When I was a child, I was jealous of twins. I thought how cool it would be to have a twin. I had twin cousins a few years older than I was that I saw on a frequent basis. I always got them confused. Which one was Roger, and which one was Ronny? A buz...
I was 20 years old and 18 months away from finishing my formal education. Forever. I was well on my way to being a…structural engineer. Wait, that must be a typo. Structural? Really? Where did the fluids come in? I really liked structural mechanics and that was where I was focused for the first 2.5 years of my mechanical engineering studies. My cla...
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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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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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My name is Trey and I am a Disney geek. A real, true Disney geek. What does that have to do with Applied Flow Technology and pipe flow simulation? Well, a lot actually. Read on if you want to know more… This year is AFT's 25th anniversary and I have been doing a lot of reminiscing. About many things. I have been a Disney geek since I rode Dumbo at ...
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It was not intentional. The Trifecta I mean. It just sort of happened organically. But now that I have completed it, I think it is kind of cool. There are three Space Shuttles that have flown into space and are now in American museums: Discovery - in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia (near Washington D.C. ...
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AFT Fathom XTS and AFT Impulse have long been able to start events like pump trips or valve closures when a certain condition is met in the system. For example, a valve can close when a tank is full, or a pump can trip when the flow is too low. However, complex systems often have multiple conditions that can cause an event. The pump may trip when the flow is too low OR the suction pressure is too low. The valve may only close when two tanks are full. AFT Fathom version 10 and AFT Impulse version 7 enhance the transient capabilities to allow the definition of these complex Multi-Condition Events.
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Gary Vanderplaats was one of my (exalted) professors in 1985 when I was a (lowly) Senior engineering student at UCSB. If not for Gary, there would be no GSC modules for AFT Fathom or AFT Arrow, and no new AFT Fathom ANS module either. Why? First, back in 1985 UCSB had a required course for ME students in Design Optimization. It was probably one of ...
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