Editor’s Pick: Integrated Simulation Solution Updated

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

CD-adapco just announced the second 2014 release of its flagship computational fluid dynamics-based simulation software, STAR-CCM+. Officially version 9.04, this edition of this widely-deployed integrated engineering simulation solution offers a number of enhancements that sound pretty nifty, including concurrent per-part meshing (CPPM) functionality and the ability to perform CAD robustness studies. If there were one overarching theme to STAR-CCM+ v9.04, it would seem to be that CD-adapco strived to make your analysis workflows more efficient so that you can derive solutions faster. Here’s a quick look at some of the key enhancements in this release that underscore that impression.

The CPPM feature sounds like it has the potential to move analysis processes along quickly. Basically, CPPM functionality lets you assign each part of a complex assembly to a separate parallel processor. In other words, you can leverage all the CPU horses you have to wrap, mesh or remesh individual parts of your geometric assembly.

The CAD robustness study feature should save you a lot of indigestion while speeding up operations and boosting your confidence in your model. The skinny on this is that STAR-CCM+ v9.04 lets you run a CAD robustness study before you run your full analysis. That means you’re using workable geometry when you turn to running an analysis. Consequently, you know that your model will simulate without the hassles of CAD regeneration failures, and you have the confidence that you’re zoning in on an optimal design. Incidentally, CD-adapco’s Optimate line of design exploration and optimization tools also now includes the CAD robustness study functionality.

Another intriguing enhancement involves the STAR-CCM+ adjoint solver. The adjoint solver helps you explore your engineering objectives — aka cost functions — in a freeform, non-parametric way so that you can optimize a design efficiently. In v9.04, CD-adapco extended the adjoint solver with a new expression cost function that enables you to mathematically combine cost functions into arbitrary formulas. This enables users to fiddle with a combination of objectives and discover how sensitive they are to changes in shape, flow field and boundary conditions.

Version 9.04 also introduces a new contact coupling feature for the DFBI (dynamic fluid body interaction) solver. This means that you can model contact and collision between moving bodies and boundaries. Think of a ball valve rising up from its closed position, bumping into the retaining ring and eventually settling in place.

An assortment of enhancements in v9.04 simply speed things up for you, while others make working easier. For example, the Field Editor tool now provides immediate feedback on whether you built an expression correctly. And a new interactive color map editor lets you create, modify and import/export color maps.

You can learn a lot more about STAR-CCM+ v9.04 from today’s Pick of the Week write-up. After the main text, there are links to further details on all the major enhancements mentioned here. Make sure to check out the links to CAD robustness and DFBI contact coupling. They offer some animations so that you can see the potential of these enhancements for yourself.

Thanks, Pal. — Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood

Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering

Read today’s pick of the week write-up.

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