Innovation corner

We’re pleased to announce the release of PreonLab 7.0. This update marks a significant step forward, expanding capabilities across key areas like thermal analysis, vehicle dynamics, transmissions, multiphase flows, visualization, and overall usability. Several of these features have been in development for quite a long time, resulting in substantial improvements that enhance accuracy, efficiency, and integration into our long-term vision of developing the ultimate simulation tool. We look forward to seeing how they support your work. Read on for a breakdown of the highlights. Higher-order Thermal Solver: The higher-order solver unites the strengths of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics and the Moving Least Squares method, delivering high-accuracy results near boundaries. While our previous solver provided a solid foundation, it sometimes lacked accuracy in boundary regions critical for thermal applications. The higher-order thermal solver introduces a method that delivers precise, boundary-accurate results, directly addressing long-standing feedback from users.  This enhances our thermal capabilities to meet industry-standard requirements, marking a pivotal milestone toward the market-leading particle-based solver for thermal applications. Extensions to the Full Car Suspension Model (FCSM): PreonLab 7.0 also brings powerful enhancements to the FCSM framework. These upgrades ensure better wheel-ground interactions and provide improved stability under extreme conditions. It will be possible to perform simulations that include wheel detachment from the road, unlocking simulations for amphibious vehicles and emergency sinking scenarios. Additionally, vehicle motion now accounts for road slope, fluid interaction, and traction loss, enabling realistic responses to external forces. New distance-based mapping allows velocity profiles to follow the vehicle’s traveled path instead of time. New response limits constrain acceleration to physically plausible bounds, while a PID-based driver model adds configurable gains and reaction time for realistic driver behavior. Enhancements for Transmission Applications: In the context of transmission applications, this latest release introduces smart new features that aim to enhance numerical stability and phase distribution for some of the more challenging simulation cases. These include: Particle Shifting, an advanced new algorithm that reduces numerical noise by moving particles to a better integration position along their physical trajectory. Wall Confinement Handling, for improved handling of particles that can get trapped between two solid surfaces like in the meshing area between the teeth of two gears. We have also observed so far, that these features can help to minimize particle leakage issues, which can sometimes occur in very challenging simulation cases. Finally, a new maximum velocity constraint, that allows the user to manage maximum velocity outliers in the simulation, to improve overall simulation stability as well as the phase distribution via better handling of the air velocity field. Other Notable Additions: The on-going expansion of the entire feature set to our Particle Engine platform sees further benefits for performance and memory-optimization for MPI and multi-GPU simulation. Additional highlights include the exciting possibility to simulate snow in combination with fluids and elastic materials in a single setup, upgrades to Calculation Objects, and enhanced usability features such as 3D mouse support, to give users more flexibility and control during simulation set up and analysis. To top it off, a new experimental pressure boundary condition unlocks additional simulation possibilities by allowing users to specify known pressures at inlets or outlets. Of course, that is not all. Be sure to check out the changelog for a comprehensive list of all the updates and new features that make 7.0 a major milestone in the development of PreonLab! Make sure to follow us on LinkedIn so that you don’t miss new videos, case studies and updates!

Building on a series of releases that accelerated PreonLab’s performance through GPU and multi-GPU advancements and introduced a range of multi-physics features, it’s time for another major leap forward with PreonLab 7.0! This release expands capabilities across key areas such as thermal analysis, vehicle dynamics, transmissions, and multiphase flows, alongside meaningful improvements in visualization and overall usability. Leveraging the performance gains and new possibilities of recent versions, PreonLab 7.0 empowers users to tackle more complex and demanding simulations than ever before. Many of these innovations have been in development for quite some time, culminating in substantial advances in reliability, efficiency, and usability, all aligned with our long-term vision of creating the ultimate simulation tool. Join our Release Event to discover all the details!

PreonLab 6.2 introduced the Full Car Suspension Model (FCSM), significantly enhancing the capabilities of the previous Car Suspension Model (CSM). FCSM accounts for more precise suspension behavior and enables more accurate and realistic simulations across a broader range of vehicle wading scenarios. In this article, we explore how FCSM works, the new simulation possibilities it has already unlocked, and offer an outlook on what future updates may bring.

Watertightness in mobile phones is all about keeping water out to protect sensitive internal components. Manufacturers design devices to meet specific standards that measure resistance to water ingress. The Ingress Protection (IP) rating system, set by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), is the gold standard in this regard. An IP rating consists of two digits: the first covers solid particles (like dust), and the second focuses on liquids (like water). For instance, an IP68 rating means that the phone is dust-tight and can withstand submersion in water deeper than 1 meter for up to 30 minutes. These ratings are verified under controlled conditions in specialized laboratories for precision and reliability. Learn more about IP ratings: Ingress Protection Ratings Guide.

The recent release of PreonLab 6.2 introduced an exciting new feature: the linear elastic solver. This marks a significant step for us into the realm of multiphysics, aligned with our vision of creating the ultimate simulation tool. This study, which was performed during the validation tests of the linear elastic solver, focuses on reproducing the experimental and numerical work of Idelsohn et al. [1] with PreonLab. Their research investigates three examples of Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problems involving free-surface flows in a sloshing tank, which are solved both experimentally and numerically. Consequently, this work is organized into three sections, each corresponding to one of these benchmarks.

Preoneers know that PreonLab is all about particles! This is driven by our vision of a unified mesh-free representation for fluids and solids to simulate a wide (and ever-increasing) range of applications. With each release we aim to continually add new functionalities and keep improving on existing capabilities, to make our goal of developing the ultimate simulation tool a reality. Accordingly, version 6.2 will bring many additions and updates to expand on the multiphysics capabilities of PreonLab.

We are excited to announce the release of PreonLab 6.2! It is packed with advanced features and performance improvements to push the boundaries of multi-physics simulations. With each new release we continuously refine PreonLab, adding powerful functionalities and enhancing existing capabilities to make it the ultimate simulation tool. Here’s what this version has in store for you. What’s New in PreonLab 6.2? Full Car Suspension Model: We are taking our existing car suspension model (CSM) to the next level! The new Full Car Suspension Model (FCSM) now computes deflection forces per wheel, considering not just fluid forces but also acceleration, deceleration, and weight shifts. This sophisticated upgrade enables more precise simulations for automotive applications, like fast water wading, enhancing the overall performance and accuracy. Improvements for thermodynamics, multiphase and snow model: PreonLab 6.2 builds on several important enhancements across key areas for multiphysics simulations. Thermodynamics, multiphase, and snow features have been refined to improve accuracy and stability. Notable improvements include a new thermal sensor, an updated convective boundary condition, lateral adhesion for snow, improved snow boundary handling, and more stable multiphase interfaces—each contributing to elevating these features to a new level. Linear Elastic Solver: For those looking to simulate fluid-structure interactions, we are introducing an experimental linear elastic deformable solver. This first step into the realm of solid deformations caused by fluid interactions, opens new possibilities for applications that require the consideration of deformations under the load of external forces. Other notable additions: The latest release includes the introduction of the Carreau-Yasuda model for simulating non-Newtonian fluids and GPU support for the rigid body solver. Enhanced post-processing capabilities are now available with the new Calculation Objects feature, improved options for the pathlines sensor, and the ability to visualize the Q-criterion for more detailed flow analysis. This is just a selection of new features and improvements. Check out the changelog to learn about all the changes.  Make sure to follow us on LinkedIn so that you don’t miss new videos, case studies and updates!

With every PreonLab update, we aim to continuously enhance your simulation experience by increasing efficiency and reducing the memory footprint. While simulation on CPU is still the bread and butter for CFD, it is undeniable that GPUs can provide a significant performance boost towards reducing computation time. Nevertheless, one advantage CPUs generally have over GPUs is a larger memory space. Due to the limited memory of single GPU cards, simulating very large scenes with a lot of particles can be quite challenging. In addition, importing large tensor fields like airflows can also occupy a lot of precious memory space on the graphic card. While PreonLab can cleverly resample such airflows to fit on single GPU hardware, there will always come a point when sacrificing accuracy will be inevitable. One logical solution is making use of state-of-the-art GPU hardware that can accommodate large simulation scenes. Professional GPU cards like Nvidia’s H100 GPUs can already offer memory space up to 80 GB. However, does this mean that GPU simulations are only possible through the acquisition of larger and larger professional GPU cards? And what about scenes which might require even more memory space than the latest hardware available?

In the field of Computational Fluid Dynamics, the pursuit of simulation efficiency and accuracy is the name of the game. These two seemingly contradictory goals often appear at opposite ends of the spectrum. But is this always the case? Is it possible to have both efficiency and accuracy without making sacrifices? We believe it is. And we’re not referring to hardware efficiency, a topic extensively covered in our previous articles (see here and here). What we mean is state-of-the-art software development which is in the DNA of the FIFTY2 team. What we want to talk about in detail is one of our most prominent features available only in PreonLab. We named it Continuous Particle Size, or in short, CPS.

We are delighted to announce our new release – PreonLab 6.1. It is loaded with new features and improvements, enabling new engineering possibilities and applications. Empowered by the new GPU capabilities, PreonLab 6.1 takes another leap forward in efficient computing, delivering results even quicker. Read on to find out more about: Enhanced GPU performance: PreonLab’s GPU implementation just got a significant boost. Not only does PreonLab 6.1 support multi-GPU computing now, but it also enables continuous particle size (CPS), dynamic sampling, and adaptive sampling on GPU, making your simulations even more efficient. Airflow and Car Suspension Model (CSM): PreonLab 6.1 also enables airflow import and CSM support for simulations on GPU. These are some of the key application enablers making it possible to simulate various use cases also on GPU. Snow Model on GPU: Snow modeling has been an important part of existing PreonLab capabilities. We are thrilled to announce that our snow model is now also available on the GPU platform. Enhanced Thermodynamics: Convective boundary condition has been added to the list of available boundary conditions.  Convective Boundary Conditions can represent a more physical heat transfer, that predominantly occurs due to convective heat transport at fluid-fluid or fluid-solid interfaces. It is designed to conveniently represent natural or forced convection of heated solid bodies or fluids, in applications like heat exchangers, heat sinks, and even e-motors. This is just a selection of new features and improvements. Check out the changelog to learn about all the changes.  Make sure to follow us on LinkedIn so that you don’t miss new videos, case studies and updates!