Our Industry Person of the Week is Scott Lang, EIT. Scott is an Engineering Software Developer with Applied Flow Technology.
Q: How did you get started working in your field?
Scott: My interest in network-like system began at the Colorado School of Mines when I was studying power distribution for the Electrical part of my Mechanical/Electrical degree. It wasn’t until sometime later that a good friend let me know of an opening on Applied Flow Technology support team. I was interested in fluids from my classes at school, but never really thought about all the complexities of combining fluid flow and networked piping systems. While at AFT I have come to greatly enjoy the analysis of piping systems and the engineering and physics behind them. I’ve also always been interested in programming, and having learned a lot about it after graduating, moving into the software development team at AFT was a clear fit. Now I am squarely in the engineering simulation development field and feel right at home.
Q: What do you love the most about your job? What are you most proud of?
Scott: I love being able to dig into the fundamentals of a problem and work out a solution for it. Typical “engineering solutions” are often reasonable – but you can’t make an accurate simulation out of these types of solutions. Going back to the physics of fluid flow, I have often uncovered interesting relations, or made more clear what assumptions the typical estimations might be imparting – even if they don’t say they do.
I’m most proud of the extensive work I have done as the lead developer on AFT’s soon to be released application for analysis of acoustic transients in gas networks. Solving even steady gas flow has great challenges, with AFT’s Arrow being one of the few – if only – tools that can correctly capture real gas phenomena under extreme conditions for a wide variety of systems. Applying the consideration of fast acting transients (like AFT’s Impulse) to this problem has been incredibly challenging, and we believe that the tool won’t have any equally capable and easy to use commercial competitor.
Q: What advice would you give to someone considering this line of work or new to the field?
Scott: There is a lot going on in a fluid system, and many disciplines are required to fully understand and operate one. My advice would be – don’t get overwhelmed, take a look at a small piece of the puzzle, and work on it step by step. Even the most complex of problems can usually be boiled down to multiple straightforward and comparatively simple problems. I have seen this to be true not only in my specific work, but also in nearly all areas of professional and personal life.
Q: Can you talk about a project you recently worked on?
Scott: In addition to the gas transient tool I mentioned above, I recently worked with the Hydraulic Institute Commitee on Rotodynamic Viscosity Corrections to address the possibility of concern over the ANSI/HI 9.6.7 guideline on viscous corrections for rotodynamic pumps. My work culminated in a paper published at last year’s Turbomachinery & Pump Symposia (https://www.aft.com/about-aft/news/856-virtual-lecture-understanding-uncertainties-in-viscous-performance-predictions-for-centrifugal-pumps). Earlier in the year I was a co-author on a paper for ASME’s 2020 Pressure Vessels & Piping Conference on Addressing Low Pressure Transients (https://www.aft.com/technical-papers/addressing-low-pressure-transients).
THANK YOU, SCOTT! WE LOOK FORWARD TO KEEPING UP WITH YOU THROUGH THE #PUMPTALK COMMUNITY!
KNOW AN AMAZING PERSON WHO IS MAKING VALUABLE CONTRIBUTIONS WITHIN INDUSTRY? NOMINATE THEM TO BE AN “INDUSTRY PERSON OF THE WEEK”!
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