Jean-Claude Ercolanelli, senior vice president of product management at CD-adapco presents improvements to STAR-CCM+ version 11 at STAR Global Conference.
These improvements to the software are separated into three pillars: technology, experience and productivity. “If you only add new technology you can make the software unusable,” said Ercolanelli. “You need to look at how you give users the technology and how they interact with the software. The three pillars tell us what we need to touch up the software to make engineers work better, cheaper and faster.”
For a look at what has been released in STAR-CCM+ v11.02, follow this link.
New STAR-CCM+ Tech: Chemical Reactions and 2D Fluid Film Tension
One of the most interesting additions to version 11 of STAR-CCM+ is the addition of combustion modeling and reacting flows. “Adding complex chemistry in STAR-CCM+ will become available for real gases in version 11.04 and will then be available for volume of fluids (VoF) in v11.06,” explained Ercolanelli.
The addition of complex chemical reactions for both gases and liquids will allow engineers to simulate chemically reacting flow fields without linking to another software. This will simplify how engineers set up and run simulations saving them time.
With this expanded scope of the software, chemical engineers, manufacturing engineers and automotive engineers will be able to better predict the performance of their continuous reactors, mixers and combustion chambers.
Ercolanelli also mentioned that version 11.06 will be able to capture the phenomena of droplets hitting a surface with a 2D fluid field tension simulation. Traditionally this can be done with 3D models, but that tends to become computationally expensive, making it unfeasible for most organizations.
“You can’t model this in 3D, it’s just too prohibitive despite the hardware resources. The size of the model would be too large,” explained Ercolanelli. “To model this simulation with the computational power available you need to lower the dimension of the physics.”
The 2D simulations will give engineers the ability to simulate how water impinges, beads, coalesces and evacuates from a surface. To ensure the model is accurate at predicting the real life 3D rain management behavior in a 2D simulation, CD-adapco will need to validate the fluid film tension model with a collection of automotive partners. They will be testing how well the model will be able to accurately predict the performance of wipers cleaning a windshield in the rain.
Other technology improvements to STAR-CCM+ version 11 include:
- Parts based extrusion meshing
- Transitions for transonic flows
- Energy refraction modeling
- POM-POM constitutive model for rheology
- User defined cost functions for the adjoint solver
Simplified Workflows and Quick Parts make STAR-CCM+ v11 Easier to Use
There is a trend in the simulation industry to democratize simulation software, making it easier for the average engineer to use. Much of this focus is on simulation tools that experts can use to pass their knowledge to more casual users.
A new ability in version 11.04 of STAR-CCM+ will allow simulation experts to simplify the workflow by customizing the simulation tree. This will help to prevent overwhelming the new simulation user with a bombardment of abilities in the software.
“Another important user experience improvement is the Quick Parts for electronics cooling applications. It will change how people manage large assemblies of electronics components on a PC board,” said Ercolanelli.
Using Quick Parts, a user can group the geometry, mesh and physics within one electronic component. This will make the part and physics easier to bring into larger assemblies. Users can create a library of parts that are standard to their organization and add those parts to the assembly without worrying about setting anything up for the physics or mesh a second time.
Other improvements to the user experience in v11.04 and v11.06 of STAR-CCM+ include:
- Simulation tree comparisons
- Global tagging
- Simplified model selection for reactions
- CSM point loads and constraints
- Data analysis of multi-valued reports
- Simulation history (.simh) files for Lagrangian Multiphase (LMP) and derived parts
STAR-CCM+ Version 11 Makes Flow Fields Faster
“The surface wrapper takes any assembly of the geometry and quickly creates a flow domain,” said Ercolanelli. “This domain can then be meshed and solved within a CFD analysis. But this can get complicated when you need to make changes in assemblies with a large number of parts or cavities like in the hood of a car. The surface wrapping doesn’t take as long as a mesh but it is still significant.”
This local surface wrapping addition will work hand in hand with the local re-meshing tool released in STAR-CCM+ in v11.02. By combining the abilities of the local surface wrapper and re-meshing tool, users will be better able to automate CD-adapco’s Multidisciplinary Design eXploration (MDX) process. Instead of the software automatically re-meshing and surfacing the whole design, it can perform multiple simulations faster by updating the regions where the automated process made a change to the design. This capability is a great way to improve the number of simulations an engineer can perform without the need of added high performance computers (HPC).
“Our engineers need to improve the performance, the software needs to work faster on HPC resources already available to get the job done faster,” said Ercolanelli. “This will give users the time to launch more design configurations so they can better evaluate their confidence in the results.”
In other words, by improving the performance of the software, the more data an engineer can ascertain about their designs in a given amount of time. And the philosophy of MDX is that the more data the engineers have, the more comfortable they will be with the final product and the better that product will perform.
Other productivity improvements to STAR-CCM+ version 11 include:
- Parallel subsurfacing meshing
- Dual grid formation and custom contacts for discrete element method (DEM)
- Automatic time stepping for CFD
- Eulerian Multiphase wave forcing and steady state fluid films
- Moving meshes for the elasticity based morpher
What to Expect from the SIEMENS Acquisition of CD-adapco?
Sharron MacDonald, CEO of CD-adapco tells STAR Global Conference 2016 crowd that SIEMENS PLM acquisition is a win for both companies and the customers. (Image courtesy of CD-adapco.)
Update: Siemens PLM Software's release of Simcenter connects CD-adapco's technology with Siemens' other CAE tools in one platform. To read more follow follow this link. End of Update.
For those wondering what might happen to their STAR-CCM+ CFD software since the
CD-adapco acquisition process started with SIEMENS PLM Software, you are going to have to wait until the purchase is finalized.As the acquisition is still jumping through some legal regulatory hoops, the top brass from both organizations, and everyone in between, are tight lipped on the subject.
However, Sharron MacDonald, CEO of CD-adapco, was able to shed some light on the subject.
“It wasn’t Steve MacDonald’s passing that brought this on. We have been looking to sell for more than one and a half years,” said MacDonald, to a crowd at the STAR Global Conference. “Then we started seriously looking to strategic buyers over a year ago. We needed a buyer that complements the culture of the company with respect to employees and culture. It needed to be an ethical company with a strategy and plan for CFD. It became clearer close to the end that it would be SIEMENS, and this is a win for everyone including the customers.”
Though they couldn’t say much, when asked about the acquisition the general consensus at CD-adapco was optimistic and excited. In other words, it doesn’t appear that this move will change the personality of the company anytime soon.
To read more on the release of STAR-CCM+ v11.02, follow this link.