AFT Impulse Interfaces with AutoPIPE

Colorado Springs, CO, USA – October 26, 2020 -- Applied Flow Technology (AFT) now has the capability to interface ™, the industry-leading waterhammer and surge analysis software, with Bentley’s AutoPIPE software, an industry-leading Pipe Stress program. In early 2020, Phil Senior, Product Manager – Piping for Bentley Systems, contacted AFT after attending an ASME webinar AFT hosted, “ What are Waterhammer Transient Forces & How to Simulate and Analyze Your System.” The webinar discussed why it is important to include other force elements in the Waterhammer Transient Forces calculation such as:

fluid friction & momentum
wave reflection
aside from the P*A (pressure times area) which is typically the only component considered by the pipe stress engineer to calculate the transient forces

Senior understood the importance of offering the additional capability to AutoPIPE users so they too can add these elements in their transient force calculations. AFT’s Technical Sales Director, Reinaldo Pinto, explains, “It’s not easy to include these using hand calculations, engineers most certainly need a software for this type of analysis. While Bentley does have a product engineers can use for waterhammer, it’s a simple matter of the methodology used for the calculation.” AFT is currently working with the ASME B31 committee to make additions to how the B31 code addresses maximum surge pressure and dynamic loads calculated using the Joukowsky equation and DLF. AFT is hoping to include elements such as wave reflection, friction, etc... Connecting to AFT Impulse will give AutoPIPE’s users the capability of adding these elements in their transient force calculations. In recent versions, AFT has made great efforts to connect AFT software tools with other Pipe Stress programs such as CAESAR II®, ROHR2 (Germany) and TRIFLEX®. Interfacing with all of these programs has allowed users to not only export the transient force set, but to also import the piping configuration (model) to AFT Impulse.