Overview

The Glosten Associates is a full service consulting firm of naval architects, marine engineers and ocean engineers. The company’s design experience includes tugs, barges, research vessels, cruise vessels, passenger/car ferries, and special-purpose platform design. Their consulting and design services include hull, structural, mechanical and electrical systems design. The Glosten Associates offer specialized expertise in hydrodynamic analysis, climatology, risk analysis, and marine consulting for civil, waterfront, and floating bridge projects.

Kevin J. Reynolds, Senior Marine Engineer at The Glosten Associates, had used PIPE-FLO to design fluid piping systems in their vessel designs. He was familiar with the programs ability to complete complex calculations quickly, and he knew the power of PIPE-FLO could be used in a new product offering the company was working on.

Using the PIPE-FLO Software Development Kit (SDK), Glosten was able to easily and efficiently integrate the power of PIPE-FLO with their new product offering.

The Challenge

Due to environmental implications, it has become increasingly important for vessels to track the movement of water through their ballast tanks as they move from port to port. As these vessels travel around the world taking in and discharging water, non-native marine species can be introduced into the environment with potentially damaging consequences.

Glosten had an innovative product idea to help combat this growing problem, the Glosten Ballast Management System. However, they recognized a major stumbling block in the process of taking the project from the idea stage to the production stage. They would need to determine how to track the water movement within the vessel.

PIPE-FLO's Solution

In attempting to overcome their challenge, Glosten knew it had a number of options. Utilizing PIPE-FLO and the PIPE-FLO SDK quickly became the best choice.

"We knew we could install flow meters, but they are expensive and notorious for not being reliable," said Kevin J. Reynolds, Senior Marine Engineer at The Glosten Associates. "We also thought about developing our own custom calculation algorithm internally."

The cost of both of these options quickly became prohibitive. According to Reynolds, "it would have taken us six months of development time to create the interface internally and using flow meters would have significantly increased the capital and installation costs of the product."

Glosten knew that PIPE-FLO had the ability to complete the necessary calculations. What was needed was a way to seamlessly transfer data inputs to PIPE-FLO and allow PIPE-FLO to perform calculations and share that information with the Ballast Management System. Using the PIPE-FLO SDK, they were able to make this happen quickly, effectively and with limited expense.

"Without the PIPE-FLO SDK, the cost of the project would have been so great that we would have scrapped it in the design phase," Reynolds said.

"Using the PIPE-FLO SDK let us concentrate on the problem we were trying to solve because we didn’t have to invent a tool to track water internal movements," said Reynolds. "The set-up is simple. Procedures are reliable and straightforward. PIPE-FLO is the engine, our program starts the engine."