The
History of TRIFLEX®
21 January 2002
In April of 1971, AAA Technology
was founded. Shortly thereafter, the initial version of
TRIFLEX® was developed in order to enable the company's
staff to be more efficient in providing piping stress analysis
consulting services. Two of our earliest clients for piping
stress analysis services were the Houston offices of the
J. E. Sirrine Company and J. F. Pritchard and Company. As
time progressed, these clients wanted to be able to use
the piping stress analysis software that we were using rather
than relying upon our staff to perform all of the piping
stress analysis calculations for them. In order to satisfy
their requests, we negotiated an agreement with a Houston-based
Computer Service Bureau, Bonner & Moore Computing Company,
for our software to be made available for public usage on
a fee basis on their computer systems. In addition, we compiled
a user's manual to provide users with guidance in building
piping models. The initial commercial version of TRIFLEX®
was made available in 1972.
Starting
in 1973 the popularity of TRIFLEX® spread and to Computer
Service Bureaus. The service bureaus included the University
Computing Utility Company (UCC), Computer Sciences Corporation,
United Information Services Co. (UIS), McDonnell Douglas
Automation (McAuto), Multiple Access and Control Data Corporation
(CDC) as well as a variety of regional and smaller service
bureaus throughout the world. In 1973, TRIFLEX® was
made available on UCC's service bureau and the popularity
of TRIFLEX® really began to grow. By early 1980's, CDC
was the dominating service bureau and TRIFLEX® was one
of the more widely used programs on the service.
The
earliest versions of TRIFLEX® were all batch oriented
with pre-printed forms for the user to write what the input
was to be. Data was then keypunched onto cards from the
forms. The cards were then read into the computer through
a card reader and the data was processed. All output reports
were generated in batch tabular form and printed out on
line printers. In order to facilitate more User Friendly
usage, our staff constructed a Keyword Data Entry format
that enabled users to enter data through a terminal thereby
bypassing the need for keypunched cards. As time progressed,
we also offered output reports in a standard, letter sized
page format that enabled users to print out reports on the
terminals. This gave rise to a more interactive usage of
TRIFLEX®.
In the
late 1970's and early 1980's, minicomputers became widely
available and our larger users demanded that we offer our
TRIFLEX® program on these computers. TRIFLEX was made
available on several mini-computers, such as: PRIME Computer
and Digital Equipment VAX, Apollo, Perkin Elmer, Intergraph,
Sun and others.
In the
early 1980's, a dramatic recession hit the petrochemical
industry in the U.S. and many of our customers disappeared.
They either went into bankruptcy or merged with other companies
to survive. As the economy recovered, the PC was introduced
and the way our customers performed piping stress analysis
calculations began to change. By the mid 1980's, TRIFLEX®
was functioning on a PC-XT; TRIFLEX® offered a deflected
position plot to enable users to see visually where a pipe
is deflecting. As the years passed, we added the dynamic
(mode shapes and frequencies; Time History Analysis and
Response Spectrum) capabilities.
In December
1998, TRIFLEX® Windows was released.
On September 8, 1999, the popularity of TRIFLEX® and
the other engineering software offered by the Engineering
Software Division of AAA Technology a separate company was
created in order to eliminate confusion in the marketplace.
The Products Division of AAA Technology now operates as
AAA Technology and manufactures pipe hangers and supports
for the process industry. PipingSolutions operates as an
engineering software company.
We invite
you to test drive TRIFLEX® Windows
and enjoy the superior ease of use and stunning graphics
that TRIFLEX® Windows offers!
