One of the toughest aspects of hydraulic system design is accepting that a system cannot always operate at steady state. Whether system transients are intentional or unintentional, routine or emergency, understanding a transient’s impact on a system is critical to ensuring safe, continuous operation.
Applied Flow Technology has released AFT Impulse™ 9 for engineering teams to better understand their systems during deviations from steady state. Waterhammer and surge analysis performed in AFT Impulse helps engineers around the world mitigate failures & avoid downtime by providing the reliable information necessary to prevent incidents before they happen. While new features and capabilities strengthen this analysis software with each new version, AFT Impulse has been a premier and reliable transient analysis tool since its release in 1997.
New features in AFT Impulse™ 9 include:
- A redesigned Gas Accumulator window to improve usability and add new features such as calculating liquid height.
- Improved multi-scenario graphing to compare and animate design alternatives with different time steps.
- Options to convert Shear Rheometer data for Power Law and Bingham Plastic viscosity models.
- The Herschel-Bulkley viscosity model for shear thinning or thickening fluids with a yield stress.
- A streamlined setup from the new Analysis Setup menu, a user-friendly workflow condensing several model-wide specification windows into one.
- An overhauled Library Manager (previously the Database Manager) offering a consolidated way to access and customise libraries of fluids, pipe materials, components, etc.
- Colour-coded, organised, and prioritised list for warnings, errors, and Design Alerts shown in the Output for quick review.
Often waterhammer issues are addressed only by specialist consulting companies due to waterhammer’s esoteric nature, but AFT Impulse continues to be developed with the everyday engineer in mind. Not only will an engineer understand the cause of a problem with AFT’s visualisation tools, but they can also design, test, and implement their solution.