AFT Fathom

Description

Incompressible Pipe Flow Analysis & System Modeling Software

Applied Flow Technology (AFT) Fathom is practical fluid dynamic simulation software used to calculate pressure drop and flow distribution in liquid and low velocity gas piping and ducting systems.

Designed for fluid systems containing:

• Water
• Petroleum and refined products
• Chemical products
• Cryogens
• Refrigerants
• Low velocity gases
• And more

AFT Fathom is particularly useful for:

• Pipe Sizing
• Pump sizing and Selection
• Control Valve sizing and Selection
• Simulating System operation and component interaction
• Evaluating heat transfer in pipes and heat exchangers
• Troubleshooting existing systems to determine the cause of operational problems

Evaluate New Designs and Improve Your Installed Systems

AFT Fathom…

• Accurately simulates individual system components and their interaction
• Tightly integrates equipment characteristics, analysis and output with your system’s schematic representation
• Provides a wide array of features without sacrificing your need for a short learning curve
• Frees you to focus on your system, not the mechanics of software manipulation
• Significantly improves the quality of systems engineering you can achieve, leading to less costly, more efficient and more reliable piping systems

Features

• Advanced hydraulic solver using Newton-Raphson matrix methods
• Detailed modeling for centrifugal and positive displacement pumps
  • NPSH evaluation
  • Variable speed pumping
  • Impeller trimming
  • Viscosity corrections using standards from the Hydraulic Institute
  • Wire-to-water efficiency calculation including pump, motor and variable frequency drive efficiencies
  • Power usage and motor sizing
  • Energy cost calculation
• Scenario Manager to track all design variants and operational possibilities in a single model file with data linkage
• Integrated graphing and reporting
• Pump vs. system curve generation including individual head curves and composite efficiency
• Conduct thermal analysis including piping heat transfer and heat exchanger modeling
• Calculate the costs of pipes and other components
• Supports Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids
• Import GIS Shape files
• Perform fire system analysis in accordance with NFPA and create NFPA specific reports
• Address viscosity and frictional changes associated with pumping non-settling solids
• Built-in library of fluids and fittings can be extended and customized
• Optional Chempak add-on utility provides a thermophysical database of almost 700 fluids

Benefits

• Understand the hydraulic behaviour of your system and predict how pipes, valves, pumps and other components will interact with each other
• Evaluate the performance of new designs and assure all design requirements are met
• Identify and correct operational problems in installed systems
• Produce less costly, more efficient and more reliable piping systems

Take Your System Designs to a New Level

Building on the foremost modeling software for incompressible pipe flow systems, the AFT Fathomadd-on modules extend your design, analysis and simulation capabilities. These modules have been designed specifically and can work with any AFT Fathom model.

• Automated Network Sizing- Automatically size piping to minimize weight and cost
• Goal Seek & Control – automates identification of input parameters that yield desired output values and simulates control functions
• Extended Time Simulation – models dynamic system behavior
• Slurry Modeling – models the effects of moving settling slurries in pipes

Automated Network Sizing

Benefits

• Size your piping network as an integrated system to ensure you find better design combinations
• Manage your iterations, enabling efficient comparison of more design concepts.
• Use design cases to size a system while anticipating different operating requirements or future expansions.
• Perform economic analysis without opening another program.

Capabilities

• 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 system for multiple operating conditions, meeting design requirements using dependent design cases

Goal Seek & Control (GSC Module)

Benefits

• Evaluate the effects of changing system parameters
• Save time by avoiding manual iterative analyses
• Simulate control system behavior

Capabilities

• Define multiple variables and goals at multiple locations
• Define goals as single point, differential or sum
• Calibrate models by automatically adjusting pipe friction and scaling to match measured data
• Modeling parameters for variables or goals include
  • Control valves – setpoint, open percent
  • Pumps – speed, flow, head rise
  • Valves – open percent, Cv/K, delta P, flow
  • Reservoirs – pressure, temperature
  • Orifice – diameter, area
  • Heat exchangers – heat rate, temperatures, area, U value
  • Spray discharge – area, K value, discharge coefficient, exit pressure

Extended Time Simulation (XTS Module)

Benefits

• Understand how critical system parameters vary over time
• Automatically change variables for a dynamic simulation of your system

Capabilities

• Define a wide range of actions to occur during the time simulation including:
  • Tank volume and liquid level tracking
  • Pump start/stop and speed variation
  • Valve position changes
  • Control valve setpoint variation
• Text and graphical output
• Unique animation feature dynamically displays time-varying parameters along selected flow paths

Settling Slurries (SSL Module)

Benefits

• Expertly handle slurry system challenges
• Avoid system failures and excessive operational costs
• Prevent plugged pipes and misapplied pumps
• Reduce energy usage
• Improve system performance
• Reduce operating and maintenance costs

Capabilities

• Solutions from the leading Wilson/GIW method
• Shareable database of solid particle properties
• Slurry pump de-rating using Warman or ANSI/HI methods
• Produces output reports with settling velocity, slurry volume/mass flows and other slurry parameters
• Generates slurry systems curves critical to understanding system velocity limits