BOSfluids comes with a graphical user interface that offers a streamlined model definition procedure and extensive post-processing capabilities. The interface consists of two main areas: an area on the left that is made up of a series of tab pages providing many different input, selection and control elements; and an area on the right, named the 3-D viewer, that provides a graphical representation of the piping model. The tab pages in the left area are arranged in such a way that you normally proceed from left to right in order to define the piping model; to define the analyses that are to be performed; to run one or more simulations; and to analyze the results. The 3-D viewer provides graphical feedback of the changes you make to the piping model. It can be used to interact with the model, to select parts of the model in a graphical way, and to view the simulation results.

BOSfluids provides support for defining overlapping groups of elements and nodes that enable you to partition your model in a logical way and to apply bulk operations to different parts of the model. In addition to user-defined groups, BOSfluids maintains a collection of built-in groups that enable you to select elements and nodes on the basis of their properties. This can save a lot of time when you need to adapt operating conditions or pipe-related data.

Parts of a model can be excluded from analyses with a few simple operations. Excluded parts are rendered translucently so that they are visible at a glance and so that you can keep interacting with them in a graphical way.

BOSfluids automatically updates model parameters that refer to elements, nodes and other entities when those entities are renamed or removed. This means, for instance, that a reference to a sensor node remains correct when renumbering the nodes in a model. This also means that you can more easily duplicate parts of a model as references to elements and nodes within those parts are duplicated in a correct way. This, together with the possibility to create multiple duplicates with one operation, can save a lot of time when modeling repetitive structures.

Because BOSfluids works with 3-D piping models you can easily correlate the model to the actual piping system, helping you to avoid making modeling mistakes. Another significant advantage is that BOSfluids can not only predict the magnitude of the unbalanced fluid forces, but also their direction and exact location. This makes BOSfluids ideal for combined fluid-structure analyses.

BOSfluids also supports building network-like models by means of the pipeline element type. In fact, you can build part of your model as a realistic 3-D model and another part as a network-like model. In this way you can obtain more detailed output results at the locations where that is necessary.

A BOSfluids piping model is actually made up of a flow model and a structural model. The latter can not only comprise the usual pipe elements, but also different kinds of supports, structural steel elements, and tee junctions with associated geometry parameters, flexibility factors, stress intensification factors and sustained stress indices. This means that you can build one piping model in BOSfluids that can be used for both flow and structural analyses. This greatly reduces the need to build and maintain two different models in different software applications.

Fast-changing flow conditions can lead to high and low pressures that can affect the integrity of the piping system. These conditions typically involve fast-changing and large pressure differences between opposite bends in the system. These, in turn, can result in significant forces acting on the piping system that can lead to mechanical failure.

BOSfluids can accurately predict the dynamic, fluid-induced forces acting on the piping system. That is, BOSfluids can predict the time-dependent magnitude, location and direction in which the forces act. Not only that, with BOSfluids you can perform a coupled fluid-structure analysis with a supported structural solver. This means that you can assess the effects of the fluid-induced forces on the piping system without leaving the BOSfluids interface.

Alternatively, you can export the forces in various formats, including those that can be imported by CAESAR II and Bentley AutoPIPE. All these features make BOSfluids a powerful and efficient tool for performing combined fluid-structure analyses involving piping systems.

BOSfluids enables you to define multiple scenarios in one piping model. A scenario can be viewed as a context or scope in which the model parameters are defined. Multiple scenarios can be defined in order to study different variations of the piping model. For instance, if you are interested in the effects of an orifice diameter on the flow and pressure distribution you could define multiple scenarios that specify different diameters for that orifice. In fact, you can change any model parameter, except the pipe geometry, in a scenario.

Modify groups of elements in individual scenarios.

By default, a piping model comprises only one scenario, called the main scenario, that defines the primary model parameters and the piping geometry. Any other scenario is implicitly derived from the main scenario. That is, any change to the main scenario, such as a change in a pipe diameter, is propagated to all other scenarios. On the other hand, a change to any scenario other than the main scenario only affects that particular scenario.

You can perform analyses for multiple scenarios in parallel (if multiple processor cores are available) and compare the results from different scenarios in different ways.

Compare results from different scenarios.

The ability to deal with 3-D geometries does not limit the complexity and size of the models that BOSfluids can handle. DRG has put a significant effort into making sure that you can work fluidly with models involving ten of thousands of pipe elements. Entering this number of elements manually would of course not be very practical. BOSfluids can therefore import pipe models in various formats, including Piping Component Files.

Transient flow analyses involving large piping models traditionally take a substantial amount of time. BOSfluids therefore provides a very efficient transient solver that applies a novel grid coarsening method to reduce the analysis time dramatically without reducing the accuracy of the results.

BOSfluids can take advantage of multiple processor cores on different levels. On a high level it will run the user interface on a different core that the flow solver so that you can view the results for one scenario while another is still being processed. On an intermediate level BOSfluids will schedule different scenarios on different processor cores. On a low level it will use multiple processor cores to reduce the time to run a single transient flow simulation. This all means that you have to spend less time waiting for results and that you can spend more time on solving your flow problems.

BOSfluids implements models for simulating many common flow elements and transient flow phenomena. In particular, it implements models for simulating pump failure and tube rupture events. Pump failure events, involving a sudden loss of power to one or more pumps, can lead to pressure surges and flow conditions exceeding the design specifications of a piping system. BOSfluids implements a pump failure model that predicts how a pump spins down after its power has been cut. This model combines the user-specified pump map with built-in, four-quadrant Suter curves to simulate all possible flow regimes, including reverse flow and reverse rotation of the pump impeller. The user-specified map will be used as long as the flow direction and impeller rotation are conform the normal operating conditions (both positive). When either of them reverses sign, however, BOSfluids will switch to its built-in pump curves in a gradual way by means of an extrapolation method. To help you assess the accuracy of the computed results, BOSfluids implements various diagnostics and saves the relevant model parameters to output reports. This makes BOSfluids a robust tool for the analysis of pump failure events.

Tube rupture in a tube-and-shell heat exchanger can lead to over pressure situations in the shell or the tubes, especially if the high-pressure fluid is a gas or a liquid that undergoes a rapid phase transition due to flashing. The tube rupture model implemented by BOSfluids can be used to simulate the discharge of a high-pressure gas or liquid from one or more ruptured tubes into a low-pressure shell. The model supports phase transitions due to flashing, both at the fracture and within the tubes, and can handle both critical and sub-critical flow conditions. The model also accounts for pressure losses within the tubes and for pressure changes due to temperature changes.

The tube rupture model is complemented by models for safety devices such as relief valves and burst disks. Both models also support flashing and critical flow conditions. All these models make BOSfluids a versatile tool for the analysis of tube rupture scenarios.

The two-phase flood and drain model implemented by BOSfluids can be used to simulate the rapid filling of empty, or gas-filled, piping systems with a liquid. This makes BOSfluids a unique and effective tool for predicting the forces that are exerted by the liquid on the piping system. These forces can be significant, especially when the liquid hits a significant flow restriction or the end point of a pipeline section. Indeed, there have been multiple incidents involving firewater systems in which these forces caused significant damage to the piping system.

The flood and drain model can be used, among others, to simulate the flooding of dry firewater systems and the draining of fuel systems by flushing them with gas. The piping system may have an arbitrary complex topology as BOSfluids can handle the breaking up and merging of multiple gas volumes. The pressure within each gas volume is assumed to be equal throughout the entire volume, but will change in time as the volume moves through the system and interacts with deluge nozzles and air valve.

The flood and drain model extends the scope of BOSfluids from simulating single-phase transient flow phenomena to a limited but important range of two-phase flow phenomena. It does that with the computational efficiency that you might expect from BOSfluids so that you can perform flood and drain analyses of complex and large piping systems in more or less the same time that a single-phase transient analysis would take.

BOSfluids provides extensive support for simulating automatic control systems that adjust flow elements in response to changes in the flow conditions or to external events, such as timer switches. This means that you can use BOSfluids to set up, tune and assess control systems in a virtual way so that you can save time and costs, and reduce the risk of affecting a operational system in a negative, or even damaging way.

Although this support comes with the somewhat usual building blocks, including sensors, transfer functions and controllers, it differs in the way that these can be combined. That is, instead of providing a fixed set of connections between these building blocks, you can combine them by writing arbitrary control rules in the form of user-defined subroutines. This provides you with an enormous amount freedom to implement control systems that range from trivial switches to sophisticated PID controllers. In addition to that, BOSfluids will enable you to simulate control systems without having to perform a full flow analysis.

While you can perfectly well build complex piping models in BOSfluids, you can also import piping models from different file formats, including: CAESAR II neutral files, Piping Component Files, EPANET model files and spreadsheets defining pipe profiles. When you import a model you have the choice to replace the current model, extend the current model or update the current model by using the geometry defined by the imported model. The latter option is useful if you need to work with BOSfluids and another piping analysis tool on the same piping system.

When importing a piping model from a set of Piping Component Files BOSfluids will apply various, automatic algorithms to correct common problems such as overlapping elements and disjoint elements. Various parameters are available to tweak the import algorithms so that you can end up with a correct and consistent piping model. Before importing a set of PCFs, you can specify the relevant geometry parameters for the piping specifications referred to in those PCFs. BOSfluids simplifies this process by automatically extracting a list of the piping specifications after you have selected the PCFs to be imported.

DRG strongly believes that the piping models you create should not be locked away in some propriety and inaccessible format. BOSfluids models and results are therefore stored in human-readable text files and HDF5 database files that can be accessed with free and open source tools. You can even access and modify these files from Python and Matlab scripts so that you can use BOSfluids as a building block in your own, custom solution procedures.

If your BOSfluids license has expired, you can still use BOSfluids to view your models and results. You can no longer, however, save any changes to your models or perform new flow analyses.

Because we frequently use BOSfluids in our engineering projects we are in a perfect position to assist you in your use of BOSfluids. Our engineers and software developers can help you setting up your piping models and defining the analysis to be performed. They can also help you interpret the results. In the event that you are not able to solve your flow problem, you could even ask us to solve the problem for you.

The software developers at DRG all have a background in physics or aerospace engineering and are highly motivated to keep improving our software. This means that if you would make an investment in BOSfluids now, you are investing in a tool that continuously gets better and better. You can actually influence the development process as we actively listen to our user base; most changes and improvements in BOSfluids are the result of feedback from BOSfluids users.