PreonLab 7.2: Staggered CHT Delivers Up to 8x Faster Thermal Convergence, Plus Script Recording and Rigid Body Joints
FIFTY2 Technologies has released PreonLab 7.2, the latest version of its meshless, particle-based CFD software built on Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). Where recent releases concentrated on adding new physics, 7.2 focuses on getting more out of the existing ones. It shortens steady-state thermal runs, makes setup easier to repeat, and makes difficult multiphase transmission cases more robust.
Staggered CHT: Up to 8x Faster Thermal Convergence
The headline feature is Staggered Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT). In the classic monolithic approach, fluid and solid are solved together at every time step. Because solids have low thermal diffusivity, they can take far longer than the flow to reach a converged temperature, which drives up runtimes.
Staggered CHT switches the two domains between active and frozen states, and the active domain treats the frozen one roughly as a boundary condition. The fluid only needs to run long enough to settle, while the solid advances over much longer physical time. FIFTY2 reports up to 8x faster convergence to a steady thermal state with comparable accuracy. That is especially useful for oil-jet and spray cooling of e-motors. You turn it on with a single switch, and monolithic CHT remains the right choice for transient behavior.
Setup Profiles and Script Recording
Two features target repetitive setup work:
- Setup Profiles store proven solver and scene settings for recurring simulation types. A deviation check flags properties that differ from the active profile, and profiles can be exported and shared across teams.
- Script Recording captures GUI actions and generates the matching PreonPy Python code automatically. This gives you a starting point for automating parametric studies or design-variant sweeps.
Smaller additions include an orientation cube, a View Finder that previews the renderer's output, text annotations in renderings, nine-color and discrete color maps, and pathlines that can be filtered by where they start or end.
Transmission, Soiling and Rigid Bodies
For gearbox lubrication, the new Compressible Position Correction (CPC) option stabilizes multiphase simulations that use continuous particle size (CPS). FIFTY2 says CPC made cases tractable that previously could only run at uniform resolution, which matters for tightly packaged production transmissions with trapped air. A new multiphase gearbox tutorial goes with it.
The Virtual Wind Tunnel now keyframes wheel rotation automatically from the airflow, which simplifies tire-splash and side- and rear-soiling studies, and it has been optimized for GPU. The rain source also accepts user-defined log-normal and Rosin-Rammler drop size distributions, so you can match measured rain conditions.
An experimental rigid body constraints and joints feature adds revolute, slider, spherical, and universal joints. With it, mechanisms such as hinged flaps or crank-driven components can move under physics instead of external animation scripts.
Availability
PreonLab 7.2 became available on October 15, 2026. Starting with this release, downloads require a user account on the FIFTY2 Customer Portal.