AVL Customer Case Study

Water Wading Simulation

Reduce Costs, Number of Tests and Prototypes
Through Virtual Product Development

AVL Deutschland GmbH Source: Sono Motors GmbH Public

Water Wading Simulation: Optimizing the Vehicle Body
The Challenge
“Water wading” is a standard test
in vehicle development. Water
must not enter critical areas
endangering e.g., battery packs,
electric components or the air
intake. Forces caused by the
water should not damage the car
body or float the vehicle.
Testing requires a physical
prototype and a wading channel.
Even dozens of cameras provide
minimal information. You need to
rely on a complicated and
sensitive sensor setup for force
measurements.
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The AVL Approach
The Computational Fluid
Dynamics (CFD) solution
PreonLab supports Sono Motors
GmbH in simulating wading
through arbitrary depths of water
in a controlled virtual
environment at any stage of
development. PreonLab accounts
for all parts of the car; even the
suspension.
With its meshless approach and
extremely fast SPH solver,
PreonLab enables design-related
investigations of various design
concepts. The short turnaround
times and modern post-
processing allow a quick and
thorough evaluation of virtual
water wading.
AVL Customer Case Study | Water Wading Simulation | January 2023 |
The Advantages
You can gain loads of insight by
doing a full wetting analysis,
measuring the flooding height,
predicting underbody forces,
measuring flow rates and
understanding the flow path.
PreonLab gives you the tools to
quickly learn how your designs
perform in whatever metric
you’re interested in.
With PreonLab you can develop
an optimized vehicle design at
low costs. You require nearly no
physical protypes and only a
minimum number of tests.
Water Wading Simulation: Optimizing the Vehicle Body

The Company

Sono Motors GmbH was founded in Germany in 2016 and

is a publicly listed OEM working on the development of the
solar electric car Sion and the integration of solar cells into
commercial vehicles. A distinctive feature of the vehicle
designed by the company are the 456 solar half cells
embedded in the plastic body panels on the roof, hood,
tailgate and sides. The electricity generated is fed into the
traction battery and is sufficient as an energy source for
5,800 kilometers on average per year. Sono Motors has
started to sell and license this technology for the use in
buses, trucks and refrigerated trailers since 2021.

“Our goal is to establish large-scale, smart e-mobility and

sharing thereby making a significant contribution to the
reduction of global CO2 emissions. Over the past months
and years, we have been able to achieve a number of
important milestones.”
(Source: https://sonomotors.com/en/story/)

Source: Sono Motors GmbH

Public /3 AVL Customer Case Study | Water Wading Simulation | January 2023 |
Water Wading Simulation: Model Setup in PreonLab
Usability – Intuitive Workflow

Pre-processing

Source: Sono Motors GmbH Source: Sono Motors GmbH

▪ Particle-based software with drag and drop full car model
and channel model without any preparation or meshing
▪ Consideration of the vehicle suspension system and the
forces of the water
▪ Simple definition of vehicle movement and suspension
system
▪ Simple definition of water volume and local
particle refinements
▪ Evaluating wetting and forces on the structure
▪ Coupling with background flow of the
surrounding air possible

Public /4 AVL Customer Case Study | Water Wading Simulation | January 2023 |
Water Wading Simulation: Solver Performance
Efficiency – Minimize the Time From Question to Insight

Preon Solver

Source: Sono Motors GmbH Source: Sono Motors GmbH

Maximal particle count: ~45 million Calculation time: ~2½ days

(For 52 seconds of real time on 216 cores)

Public /5 AVL Customer Case Study | Water Wading Simulation | January 2023 |
Water Wading Simulation: Result Analysis
Reliability – Validated and Tested

Post-processing

Force [N]

Source: Sono Motors GmbH Source: Sono Motors GmbH

▪ Advanced post-processing and visualization

▪ Realistic visualization of the 3D flow
▪ 2D analyses of wetting areas, forces, volume flows, flow paths etc.

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Advantages of PreonLab SPH CFD Simulation

From the Point of View of Sono Motors

Water wading performance is a basic requirement of a safe and convenient

car. The simulation by PreonLab enabled Sono Motors to carry out water
wading performance tests with the Sion at an early stage without the
necessity of hardware testing. PreonLab reduced the costs for development
and supported Sono Motors in achieving their development goals as well as
a high product quality. The simulations have optimally prepared the Sion
for the upcoming hardware tests in the course of series validation.
Source: Sono Motors GmbH

"The Sion is one of our solutions for a world without fossil fuels and in
which every car is used as efficiently as possible. We follow this principle as
early as the vehicle development stage. The simulation results from
PreonLab help us to conduct the component release largely virtually and
therefore develop the Sion in a lean and cost-optimized way.“

Danilo Hauch, Head of Simulation, Sono Motors GmbH

Source: Sono Motors GmbH

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We Enable Virtualization!

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