Way back 18 years ago, in February 2001, AFT introduced a groundbreaking new technology to the marketplace. We called the technology IntelliFlow® and it was implemented in a new product called AFT Mercury™. We liked to tell people that “AFT Mercury is AFT Fathom on steroids”.
AFT Mercury built on the foundation of AFT Fathom, and the IntelliFlow technology allowed it to search for cost reduction opportunities in pipe systems. A couple years later, in 2003, we followed up with AFT Titan™, which was built on AFT Arrow™ and did the same thing for gas piping systems. This new technology caught the attention of major companies like DuPont and Saudi Aramco who showed the potential of IntelliFlow to save significant money on engineering projects.
In recent years we decided to migrate the IntelliFlow technology. Now, after several years of hard work, AFT has brought the powerful IntelliFlow technology directly into our industry leading AFT Fathom software. It is included in a brand new add-on module called Automated Network Sizing (ANS). In a few weeks you will see an ANS module also released for AFT Arrow.
So why should you care about any of this? Well, actually, you shouldn’t care. Unless, that is, you do not care about saving capital costs on your projects – or reducing energy usage and helping to create a more sustainable planet. You know, minor things like that.
OK, so how much savings are we talking about? Saudi Aramco saved over $100 million on a pipeline project. Yes really. It is all documented in a conference technical paper published in 2008. Here is a link: Application of Numerical Optimization of Seawater Pumping Systems. DuPont showed how they could easily save over $100,000 on relatively small plant piping projects and reduce energy usage by 50%. This was also published in a conference technical paper (in 2002). Here is a link to that paper (which yours truly co-authored): Optimizing Pumping Systems to Minimize First or Life-cycle Cost.
To make it as easy as possible for interested engineers to start using the ANS module, we are introducing it for the first six months at a 50% discount. If you are interested, here are some suggested resources:
- Read about the ANS module here: https://www.aft.com/products/fathom/modules/fathom-automated-network-sizing
- Watch a webinar on the ANS module here: https://youtu.be/hb3Mspk5HIY
- Email us at sales@aft.com
- Call us at 719.686.1000 (or, toll free in North America, 800.589.4943)
- If outside the USA, contact your local authorized AFT channel partner: https://www.aft.com/channel-partners/channel-partner-locations
I am really excited about our new ANS module! I hope you are too, and you are ready to start saving capital costs and energy in a whole new way!
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.