As President of AFT, I often hear from our customers about how one of AFT’s software products has helped them solve a problem or made their lives easier. Sometimes I’ll notice something in the news and think how AFT’s products COULD have helped avoid a problem. Every month, I’d like to share these insights with you in hopes that we can all work together to make our pipelines safer and more efficient.
Last week I met an AFT Impulse user at a conference and was reminded of how profoundly our products affect the safety of industrial systems. I made a presentation at an engineering conference on the imbalanced forces generated during waterhammer and how they can impact pipe structures. As many of you know, our AFT Impulse software can predict these forces and then pass them automatically to pipe stress software products like CAESAR II® and TRIFLEX®.
The customer attended my presentation and had used AFT Impulse last year to forensically model the waterhammer transients in a combustible liquid pipe system. The transient had damaged a pipe flange, caused a leak, which resulted in an explosion which destroyed the facility. I did not find out if there was any loss of life, but as we all know this is always of great concern in many industrial facilities.
I am frequently amazed at the level of misunderstanding that exists in industry on subjects like waterhammer and am concerned about the risk to human life and property. Engineering overdesign and built-in safety systems usually compensate for the misunderstandings. But not always.
Engineers have the difficult job of assessing and balancing risk and safety issues in industrial facilities. I am proud that AFT Impulse has emerged as a key tool for many such engineers to improve safety and reliability.
If you have a success story or are curious about how AFT products relate to something you hear in the news, feel free to email info@aft.com
AFT President & Founder | ASME Fellow - Trey founded AFT in 1993. He was the original developer of AFT Fathom (including the GSC and XTS modules), AFT Arrow and AFT Impulse. He was active in software development until 2011 and still works with the development team in addition to managing AFT. He has taught hundreds of training classes on AFT’s software products in twelve countries across every populated continent. He worked previously for General Dynamics in cryogenic rocket design and Babcock & Wilcox in steam/water equipment design. He holds a BSME (1985) and MSME (1986), both from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a registered Professional Engineer.