Overview

York Snow, Inc., a division of York International, provides leading edge engineering, cooling and automated snowmaking technologies worldwide. There are currently over 300 York-installed snowmaking systems operating on four different continents.

When York Snow, Inc. needed a tool to design a snow making system with over 44 miles of pipe for a site of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, they turned to Engineered Software’s PIPE-FLO program for the solution.

The Challenge

Jean Petit, at York Snow, Inc. needed to design this large snow making system with over 44 miles of pipe and 8 high-pressure pumps. Under a tight deadline, Jean’s job was to give the ski mountain complete snow making capabilities in far less time than anticipated.

Jean came to the conclusion that it would be very difficult meet the customer’s deadline using a spreadsheet and a hand calculator. He needed a software package to save him significant time in the design and sizing of pipes and pumps for the large networked system.

PIPE-FLO's Solution

Keeping this challenge in mind, Jean searched the Internet for the most qualified fluid flow analysis program available. It was evident to him that PIPE-FLO was the software program he needed.

"The fact that Engineered Software offered a demo version of PIPE-FLO was key to the evaluation of the program," said Jean Petit, York Snow, Inc. "I tested the programs features and functionality, and then designed an example system using the demo. When I had questions, Engineered Software was there to help the entire way."

After a successful analysis of the PIPE-FLO demo, Jean decided to purchase the full featured PIPE-FLO Professional program because of the programs powerful calculation engine and ease of use.

"What attracted me about PIPE-FLO the most was the ease of calculation. I could enter the pipe and fluid properties, click the calculate button, and I had an accurate answer immediately," said Jean Petit. "In a system that used to take me weeks to design, PIPE-FLO allows me to accomplish in less than half a day."

"PIPE-FLO really cuts down on my design work of these complicated snow making systems," said Jean Petit. We see a tremendous amount of value in PIPE-FLO’s network analysis of the system. The strong benefit of PIPE-FLO is being able to analyze multiple loops and branches of pipeline, all at one time. "

"The whole mountain did not have snow making capabilities, and in one summer, with assistance from PIPE-FLO we were able to provide the mountain with complete snow making capabilities," said Jean Petit.

Using PIPE-FLO, York Snow, Inc. was able to offer better products and services to many other ski resorts around the world. Since this project they have successfully used PIPE-FLO to design over 12-15 snow making systems.