Innovation corner

Ein Traum wird Wirklichkeit. – Die FIFTY2 Technology GmbH und die AVL Deutschland GmbH laden zum ersten PreonDay in die Motorworld nach Böblingen ein. An diesem Tag wird sich alles um die Simulationssoftware PreonLab und die PreonLab Community drehen. Der PreonDay richtet sich gleichermaßen an die User von PreonLab, als auch an die, die es noch werden wollen.  MAKE IT REAL.

We are excited to announce the release of PreonLab 5.3. It improves upon features from previous releases and adds some useful new features. As always, our focus is on improving reliability, performance, and usability. Here are some of the highlights: Pathlines: This release adds more options to accurately select and track fluid in regions of interest. This includes tracking particles passing by geometries in a specified time interval. Airflow import: PreonLab 5.3 can better handle volumetric data saved to the Ensight Gold format and seamlessly integrates the airflow data into the simulation domain. Thermodynamics: PreonLab 5.3 introduces a new heat capacity modifier, which enables thermal simulations with solids to reach equilibrium faster. This is handy for thermal applications where the results from the steady state are the focus of the analysis. Usability & Workflow: Users can now track their action history for a single session and jump between two states with just a click of a button in the action log, which is a dedicated tab in the PreonLab GUI. This release also improves the plot dialog performance making it possible to consider an even larger amount of data for analysis than ever before. 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!

We at FIFTY2 configure and maintain a few dozen physical and virtualized servers for our developers and application engineers, so they have a solid, basic infrastructure to develop, test and simulate on. Getting everyone to remember one single password for everything is easy, but certainly not a best practice in operational security. Also, writing down every password in a shared spreadsheet still feels kind of wrong, but leads into the right direction. There are plenty of available password managers to choose from, be it online as a service, offline, shared with other people, or just integrated into the browser you are using right now to read this text. Chosing one of them is no big deal, but what if it comes to automatically accessing those machines that we set up, with passwords that are stored somewhere in a password manager? And how can we gain access to a server when physically standing in front of it, in case a disaster hits the fan? How can different people stay on top of all passwords configured, without reusing a password, ever? And, once we overcome those challenges, what other handy things can we do with such a system? None of those challenges are new or extremely hard to solve problems, but getting them set up initially and making them work smoothly can have some bumps down the road. In this article, we show how we are using password-store to manage various credentials for multiple systems, how we set it up to couple it with the Ansible automation platform. In case you are interested in trying this out yourself, there should be enough code snippets to get you up and running in no time.

Preoneers all over the globe know, that there is no such thing as an ordinary PreonLab release. But this time, we have something very special for you. Not only because the FIFTY2 engineers are numberphiles and version 5.2 is special for us for obvious reasons. But also because PreonLab 5.2 will push things to the limit, starting with Continuous Particle Size giving more degrees of freedom and a significantly improved workflow. But there is even more. Don‘t miss the news and join us for this event!

Reliability is one of the key drivers of our product development at FIFTY2. Users of PreonLab can always be sure, that new versions have been thoroughly tested before we release them. On the other hand, our quality awareness should not slow us down implementing new features. In this article we show how our development process is structured such that we don’t sacrifice one goal for the other. We continuously validate the simulation results and the application behavior. This means, that every new feature is carefully looked at. Our engineering team analyzes the result and validates physical aspects. New development should also not break existing workflows. There are a lot of different aspects of quality assurance, which in combination makes PreonLab an enjoyable user experience. At FIFTY2, we have different stages where different variants of software testing is strictly incorporated in the development process. Like this, we minimize the risk of regressions and side effects and ensure reliable simulation results. It is always our goal to ensure, that the PreonLab version deployed to our users is the best version so far.

The automotive industry is facing one of the most demanding challenges in its history: how to make automated travel safe in all conditions. With advanced and autonomous vehicles entering the market, solving problems linked to illumination and weather conditions such as rain, fog and snow is key to ensuring a safe environment for drivers, passengers and pedestrians. FIFTY2 is proud partner of the international AI-SEE Project (Artificial Intelligence enhancing vehicle vision in low visibility conditions) helping to tackle these challenges with PreonLab.

The automotive world is changing. In order to keep up with the challenges faced in the context of digitalization, Audi established the simulation of water in the development process. In the beginning of this century the Audi portfolio had five segments with different models. From year to year, new model lines were added to meet growing customer needs. Currently, the automotive industry is faced with new challenges in fulfilling the criteria for sustainability and climate neutrality, resulting in even more models with various new types of powertrains, such as hybrid or the e-tron.

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.