Innovation corner

PreonLab is successfully employed by Renault to validate and improve heat shield designs which guarantee that no flammable liquid gets in contact with hot parts of the engine. Testing on a real prototype is difficult since first the leakage itself has to be reproduced and secondly, hot liquids may be dangerous.

Thanks to the electrification of the powertrain, innovation in the automotive industry is happening faster than ever. Short time to market for electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid vehicles (HEVs) is one key to be successful for OEMs and tier 1 suppliers.

These are challenging and exciting times for the automotive industry. In 2020 the current EU regulations that set CO₂ emissions standards for cars and vans will be replaced with stricter targets to be met by 2025, so innovative solutions are necessary to secure high mobility comfort at low emission rates. Our customer Volvo Car Corporation aims to have 50% of their annual sales come from fully electric vehicles.

We are very excited to announce the release of PreonLab 4.0. This major release expands, improves, and accelerates the core capabilities of PreonLab, highlighted by the following features: Snow solver: PreonLab continues to push the boundaries of particle-based simulations with the introduction of a semi-implicit snow solver. More accurate fluid solver: The updated Preon solver is able to capture even more phenomena and requires less parameter calibration. Implicit thermodynamics solver: The thermodynamics solver now supports much larger timesteps via implicit integration, greatly improving performance. Local fluid refinement (experimental): It is now possible to use two particle sizes in the same simulation, reducing computation time and the amount of generated particle data. This is just a selection of new features. PreonLab 4.0 is a truly massive update that also introduces improved file management, enhanced rendering capabilities, air pressure force fields, faster MPI, an improved car suspension model, arbitrarily shaped volume sensors and much more. We will publish videos showcasing some of the new features in the coming weeks. Make sure to follow us on LinkedIn so that you don’t miss them!

Electric motors have high operating efficiency, but they also produce large amounts of heat. Removing this heat and keeping the motor at a prescribed temperature range is key for high performance and sustainability of the electric engine. Using our CFD solution PreonLab, a simulation enables engineers to analyze the lubrication and cooling efficiency resulting from a centrifugal liquid spray.

Efficient and safe water management is an important aspect in the vehicle development process. Virtual prototyping greatly contributes in terms of design variations, shape optimization and wetting prevention.  

Does this sound familiar to you – are you looking to optimize the design of the vehicle for water passage? Or would you like to optimize rain water evacuation in order to prevent corrosion and icing?