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AFT Titan - Intelligent Sizing for Compressible Flow Piping Systems
Windows
With ever increasing complexity, sizing today’s compressible flow systems for
minimal cost surpasses the best traditional design methods. Human intelligence
cannot comprehensively handle the often
 staggering
number of variables involved, resulting in missed opportunities to reduce cost.
Now, AFT Titan™ with IntelliFlow® eliminates these boundaries. Providing the
systems engineer a new technology to intelligently size the system as a whole,
your compressible flow piping system can be optimally sized resulting in
substantial cost savings. With comprehensive system modeling capabilities, a
flexible graphical interface and an advanced optimization engine, AFT Titan
offers a quantum leap improvement to the traditional pipe and duct design
process.
What is intelligent system sizing? Traditional engineering methods are limited
in their ability to select pipes, ducts and equipment sizes on a system basis.
Even simple systems will have billions of potential size combinations to
consider for their various components, far too many to evaluate by traditional
methods. In contrast, intelligent system sizing selects all components
simultaneously as a unit. This is the essence of IntelliFlow® technology. AFT
Titan harnesses this technology to automatically identify and select the lowest
cost design to meet your requirements.
With AFT Titan, you specify the design requirementsand sizing criteria. Sizing
criteria may be to minimize initial or life cycle cost, or parameters such as
pipe weight, volume or surface area. AFT Titan then performs a comprehensive
analysis of the complex interaction among the various components to
intelligently determine the optimal sizes of piping, ducting, compressors and
fans, valves and other system components. The savings in materials,
installation, energy and other costs associated with your piping or ducting
system can be dramatic. Traditional methods of system sizing simply can’t
compare. No matter how good your design methods are, AFT Titan is guaranteed to
reduce cost.
AFT Titan is built on and includes all of the modeling building tools and
analysis capabilities of AFT Arrow. Models of compressible piping systems may be
developed and analyzed within AFT Titan as in AFT Arrow. Model files developed
within either AFT Arrow or AFT Titan may be opened by the other application.
Please refer to tthe AFT Arrow pages for a description of of these modeling
capabilities.
In addition to these powerful analysis and modeling simulation capabilities, AFT
Arrow employs IntelliFlow® determine optimal pipe and equipment sizes that will
meet system performance requirements at minimum cost.
What is IntelliFlow®? IntelliFlow® combines powerful network pipe flow analysis
algorithms with state-of-the-art numerical optimization algorithms to
intelligently evaluatethe complex interaction of system design variables. The
system design is repeatedly perturbed and re-analyzed to define the shape of the
design space, revealing combinations of design parameters that minimize cost.
Design constraints specified by the engineer direct the search in areas that
satisfy design requirements such as pressure, velocity and compressor pressure
rise. Searching continues until an optimum design is found, which is then
presented to the user.
Selected through Optimization Control, AFT Titan will perform either and
Engineering Optimization or a Cost Optimization.
Engineering optimizations will determine optimal pipe sizes to minimize
one of the following as selected by the user:
- Pipe weight
- Pipe plus fluid weight
- Pipe volume
- Pipe surface area
Cost optimizations will determine optimal pipe and component sizes to
minimize:
- Initial, or non-recurring costs (materials, installation), or
- Life cycle cost, the sum of non-recurring and recurring costs (energy,
maintenance)
Whether an Engineering or Cost optimization is performed, the user may elect to
have AFT Titan conduct a continuous or discrete optimization. In a continuous
optimization, AFT Titan will identify the optimal pipe diameters on a continuous
basis, that is, as if any diameter were available. When discrete optimization is
selected, AFT Titan will first conduct a continuous optimization, identifying
the optimial inner diameters of the piping, and then proceed to identify the
discrete optimum inner diameters from the list of available sizes; e.g. IPS
nominal pipe sizes. Discrete optimization is significantly more difficult to
determine than continuous optimization and is an example of the advanced
capabilities of AFT Titan that make it unique as the first optimization tool for
real world compressible flow systems.
Optimization Interface
In addition to the optimization engine, AFT Titan includes several unique
interface features necessary for optimization, as described below.
 Size
Ranges (Discrete optimization)
When AFT Titan searches for an optimal system, it does so by evaluating
different pipe size combinations. The user tells AFT Titan which sizes to
consider through pipe size range sets. Any number of size range sets may be
defined and a size range set may include any or all of the pipes of a material
type. These may be selected from any of the several standard pipe databases
included with AFT Titan or may include new pipe data added to the database by
the user.
Size range sets provide both control and flexibility in optimizing your system.
For example, you want to use standard steel piping but exclude 3-1/2" and 5"
which, while part of the IPS sizing, are not commonly available. Or you may want
to limit the maximum height of ducting considered based on clearances available.
This is readily done by including in the size range set only those sizes meeting
your criteria. Since any pipe in the system may be associated with any size
range set and any number of range sets may be included in the model, one can
readily optimize a system that contains mixtures of pipe materials, schedules
and size ranges.
Pipe Linking
Just as practical optimization will usually consider a select set of pipe sizes,
there are a variety of reasons why some pipes should be grouped into a common
size. For example, while a supply main with many branches may theoretically have
many size reductions as flow is decreased along its length, in practise we know
that a more limited number of sizes along the supply main is desireable to
reduce the number of pipe sizes to be ordered and handled and to avoid excess
reducer fitting costs. Too, there will be instances where it is obvious that two
or more pipes should be the same size, such as the supply and return lines to a
heat exchanger which are carrying the same flow and have the same length and
similar configuration.
In AFT Titan pipes may be linked to a reference pipe, referred to as a link
basis pipe, which will keep all such linked pipes the same size as the reference
pipe. There may be any number of link basis pipes and, thus, any number of
linked pipe groups. Linking provides the user control to maintain a consistency
in pipe sizes where desired.
Constraints
Constraints are the primary means by which you communique your design
requirements to AFT Titan. Approximately 60 different constraints are available,
including - Pipe constraints - velocity, flow rate, pressure, pressure gradient
Compressor/Fan constraints - Flow, pressure rise, power, BEP (best efficiency
point) proximity, speed Control valve constraint - pressure drop, Open
percentage And others.
Constraints are defined within a constraint set, which may include any number of
constraints. Also, an AFT Titan model may use any number of constraints. Any
number or combination of requirements may be specified in the sizing of a
system.
Optimization over Multiple Cases
Most systems have multiple operating requirements. A turbine supply steam system
operating with one or two steam generators or a chemical feed system with
varying load profiles over time. With AFT Titan you may make any number of
alternate cases of your system model, with each using its specific constraints.
Alternate cases can represent different system line ups and/or time varying
demands. Optimization of the system is thus obtained while considering the
requirements for all of the operating cases.
Cost Databases
As with AFT Arrow, AFT Titan includes engineering databases for piping
materials, components (compressor/fans, valves, etc.), fluids and insulation.
The standard material database contains information for the following pipe
materials:
- IPS size steel
- IPS size stainless steel
- PVC
- PVDF
- HPDE
- Ductile iron
- Copper tubing
- Copper pipe
Additional pipe materials and types may be easily added to the database by the
user and databases may be shared across a network. AFT Titan directly models
rectangular ducting as well as cylindrical so that ducting for ventilation or
other low pressure systems may be readily modeled.
 Any
component defined within AFT Titan may be added to the Component Database making
it readily available to add to any system model. These can be virtually any type
of piping system component; compressor, fan, valves, control valves, heat
exchangers, etc.
In addition to these engineering databases, AFT Titan utilizes cost databases to
use in conjunction with cost optimization. Each cost database is associated with
an engineering database. Multiple cost databases may be associated with an
engineering database, providing great flexibility in managing costs for item.
For example, separate cost databases may be developed for black and galvanized
steel pipe. Both can be associated to the steel pipe engineering database and
then used in a specific optimization by simply connecting to the cost database
desired. Or you may have defined the performance characteristics of a compressor
and included them in the component database, but have not yet settled on whether
it will be engine or motor driven. One can easily conduct an optimization with
either by simply changing the cost database used.
AFT Titan's cost database manager lets you readily define and review costs for
items. The definition of costs can be done in a variety of ways best suited to
each item. Piping, for example, may have costs associated by unit length of
weight. Pump and control valve costs may be define on a per unit basis or a per
power or flow capacity basis. Other piping components such as valves and
fittings, may have costs defined on a per unit or per diameter basis. In all
cases, costs for both non-recurring (material, installation) and recurring
(operation, maintenance) may be included. Indeed, any type of cost that may be
characterized as either non-recurring or recurring may be included in the cost
calculation and, therefore, the cost optimization. Additionally, recurring costs
may be varied over time, for example, a per kw-hr rate varying over the system
life span.
Output
A tabular display of calculated results, the Output window is organized into
General, Pipes and Junctions sections, which can be displayed all at once or
individually. Additionally, the General and Junctions sections have tabbed
sub-sections to quickly view specific categories. For example, the General
section provides tabbed summaries for compressor/fans, valves and heat
exchangers, it present in the model. The Junctions section has tabs to view the
output results of all junctions as well as a tab for each type of junction in
the model.
The Output provides extensive control by the user for such items as; what
objects and parameters are displayed, units, order (including sorting), as well
format controls for viewing and printing, all of which may be changed and the
revised output viewed without re-running the model.
If you have any further queries concerning this
software, please drop us a note
and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Purchase Online
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store. Our goal is to ensure that you feel comfortable in buying our
software. We therefore employ the highest level of security for online
transactions and accept all major credit cards as well as various options
to purchase such as electronic fund transfer (EFT) or bank draft. Should
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decide on this option.
We have been selling software via the internet for many years, and
have a list of satisfied customers from across the globe. Should you require references from
some of these companies and individuals please let us know.
  
Purchase Online
| AFT Titan |
$ |
12500 |
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| AFT Titan Lease Per Quarter |
$ |
2500 |
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Should
you like to download a demo of this software, it is available by
clicking the link below.
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