AFT Blog
Air compressors, they are a machine that everyone has interacted with in their life time. Whether it is in the garage, at the gas station, or in a manufacturing environment compressed air is everywhere. Compressed air is one of the most widely used utilities out there, but also one of the most expensive utilities out there. The key to is to make su...
AFT Fathom, AFT Arrow, AFT Impulse, and AFT xStream all have a tab in the Pipe Properties window called "Fittings & Losses" which allows users to quickly specify K factors for components within a pipeline such as valves, elbows, and area changes. The Fittings & Losses allow you to simplify your model and avoid workspace clutter by inte...
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 between the two pieces of equipment quickly start to appear as they are examined with more detail. A pump...
Having some trouble getting your modelling under control? This blog will discuss some tips on how to properly use a control valve in AFT Fathom and how to interpret some common control valve warnings. For simplicity this blog will primarily discuss control valves in the context of AFT Fathom. However, the concepts discussed in this blog also apply ...
AFT strives to make our interface intuitive and user-friendly, but we know that pipe flow modeling can be complex. That's why the AFT team have worked to put together the AFT documentation portal, a new centralized place to find all of our help resources for AFT Fathom, AFT Arrow, AFT Impulse, and AFT xStream. Here's a quick summary of what you can...
Pump manufacturers often supply performance curves at a specified speed. While this is useful when the pump only runs at that rated speed, performance changes when the pump has a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD). A VFD changes the shaft speed, which, in turn, changes the performance curves. If the manufacturer only supplied a curve at a sin...
The term transient cavitation is thrown around frequently when talking about the effects that transient events have on piping systems. It is widely and correctly understood to be something that can be harmful to pipes and pipe system components, but how to predict and calculate transient cavitation is not something that is as equally understood. In...