Colorado Springs, Colo., USA, September 17, 2019 --- For 28 years, Fluor Corporation has worked with University of Houston's (UH) College of Technology and Cullen College of Engineering. This year, AFT is honored to join Fluor by providing AFT Fathom Student software licenses to the teams entering the #uhfluor2019 Design Challenge. 

This partnership came about when Fluor's David Vogel was looking for software the students at the University of Houston could use as part of a Design Challenge they participate in. The challenge then ties into the UH-Fluor Industrial Conference. The hydraulic software needed to be able to simulate a water pipeline and the necessary pump requirements. 

He downloaded the demo version of AFT Fathom and built a simple model to check functionality. It fit their scenario and David contacted AFT to see if each of the student teams could gain access to their own licenses.

In the challenge, students formulate their teams and work through a scenario where the students simulate a project from initial design through construction. The hydraulics is only part of the challenge. They will need to make adjustments to the location of the pump station, along the pipeline route, taking into consideration the cost of construction. The ideal location from the "hydraulics perspective" will not be the cheapest result, and therefore they will go through several scenarios to locate the pump along the route and provide a cost and schedule estimate based on the parameters given to them. For this challenge, since it is a team experience, and iterative process, they are given 8 weeks to formulate their solution.

For the vast majority of the students, this will be the first time that they will utilize a software package like this and it will be a great learning experience for them to utilize professional software. Fluor's goal is to expose them to professional tools and concepts that are utilized during the design process, and more importantly, the criticality of communication, teamwork, and considerations that are necessary for actual constructability of the system beyond the office design efforts. 

David says,"This provides great exposure to the up and coming mechanical engineering students to get their hands on a design tool and see the work providing true results."

In 2018, the Design Challenge had 13 teams participating. This year, they are looking to expand even further with the cooperation of the Professors at the University of Houston.  

• Dates - August 19th through October 25th
• Approximate Teams - 20-50 

For information on  the challenge, visit http://uh.edu/technology/departments/cm/fluor-conference/

Digital image from http://uh.edu/technology/departments/cm/fluor-conference/#registration