COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Software built by engineers for engineers. It’s a personal mission at Applied Flow Technology (AFT) to develop hydraulic flow tools that truly impact the engineering community. AFT’s engineering team of aerospace, chemical, and mechanical engineers carefully plan and develop software fellow engineers use to design and troubleshoot piping systems.
To accompany its AFT Fathom™ and AFT Arrow™ products, AFT has announced the release of the Automated Network Sizing (ANS) Add-on Module, which will automatically size all piping and system components in an integrated manner to minimize weight and other system costs. This is done using intelligent numerical searching algorithms available only in the ANS module.
AFT software has been used in industries ranging from theme parks to aerospace and refineries to power generation. AFT software allows engineers to model and analyze their piping systems and has been used to identify solutions and create proactive designs within some of the world’s most advanced piping and ducting systems.
The ANS Module for AFT Fathom or AFT Arrow will not only help engineers design smarter, it will help engineering firms gain a competitive edge. With the addition of the ANS Add-on Module, engineers can turn their existing steady-state hydraulic model into an intelligent calculation tool to find cost reduction opportunities in pipe systems.
AFT expects customers will save on average 10%-15% on system costs such as pipe weight or energy usage each time it is used on a project.
How Does it Work?
The magic of the ANS Module resides in IntelliFlow®, a technology developed by AFT. This intelligent technology has already been proven for real systems by major companies such as DuPont and Saudi Aramco. Both companies were able to save significant money on engineering projects.
How much was the ANS module able to save them? Saudi Aramco saved over $100 million on a pipeline project. DuPont showed how they could easily save more than $100,000 on relatively small plant piping projects and reduce energy usage by 50%.
While AFT has utilized IntelliFlow in previous product development, the technology has never been utilized on the scale AFT is delivering it with the release of the ANS Module.
Engineers will no longer need multiple products to find weight or cost reduction opportunities; the ANS Module will use intelligent search algorithms in their existing designs to find system cost minimums for them.
With the ANS Module, engineers will be able to:
• Apply design objectives to minimize system costs, including pipe weight, duct volume, and monetary cost;
• Specify design requirements such as pressures, flowrates, velocities, and NPSH throughout a system;
• Size a single system for multiple operating conditions, meeting their different design requirements using dependent design cases;
• Enforce commonality among pipe groups and parallel/back-up equipment during sizing;
• Reduce a design’s energy consumption to meet sustainability goals for a given budget; and
• Perform economic cost analysis using Excel imported cost data while accounting for the time value of money and other changing variable costs. For more information, visit www.aft.com.
