AFT Blog
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...
It's a Pump! It's a Turbine! It's a Pump as Turbine!
Pumps and turbines may serve opposite purposes, but fundamentally, they operate under the same principles. Both pieces of equipment convert between usable work and fluid energy, and both often use an impeller to make the conversion. Differences betwe...
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...
That Valve’s Got Character – Applying Pre-defined Characteristic Curves
Valves are often oversimplified during modeling. Understandably, defining a valve with its range of Cv at various open percentages requires much more information than an engineer may have during the initial design phase. However, just like handbook d...
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 ...
With the release of the Automated Network Sizing (ANS) module for AFT Fathom and AFT Arrow, network sizing has never been easier. The ANS module utilizes Intelliflow, a technology previously featured in AFT Mercury and Titan, to evaluate slight design deviations to automatically size pipes, valves, and pumps for a system as a whole. In ...
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. ...
If you have worked with Non-Newtonian fluids or low velocity systems in AFT Fathom or AFT Impulse before, then it is likely that you have worked with the Adjusted Turbulent K Factor (ATKF) method before. The ATKF method can be used to adjust K factor data developed for turbulent flow conditions to better predict loss in the laminar f...
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.
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 ...
One of the many powerful features in AFT Impulse is the ability to calculate transient forces during a waterhammer/surge event (See "Evaluating Dynamic Loads in Piping Systems Caused by Waterhammer" white paper). The resulting transient forces can be exported into a pipe stress analysis software. Pipe stress analysis care about what the trans...