CFD Solver for Pros and Rookies

By DE Editors

CD-adapco (Melville, NY and London, UK) has released of version 1.08 of its STAR-CCM+ CFD analysis software. The company designed STAR-CCM+ from the ground up with the intention of making it easy for novices to use as well robust enough to solve the power user’s compute-intensive analyses requiring tens of millions of cells.

With STAR-CCM+ 1.08, you can simulate all flow types. A key to its speed and power is its polyhedral cell approach to meshing. The polyhedral cell technology approach provides quick and easy meshing, improved solution accuracy, and faster solutions than other methods. Further, it requires less memory than hexahedral or tetrahedral meshes.

   

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STAR-CCM+ has an object-based user interface that you populate only with the features that are activated—nothing extraneous appears in the interface to annoy you. The interface guides you through the set-up and analysis of a CFD problem but, unlike most interfaces, STAR-CCM+ eschews the “fill-in-the-form” approach. Rather, it poses a sequence of relevant questions until it has all the answers needed to run your analysis. According to the company, this also means that the solver is almost certain to run.

STAR-CCM+ uses the latest numerical algorithms, including an advanced pre-conditioned coupled and segregated solver as well as advanced methods such as embedded refinement and arbitrary interfacing. It also offers visualization and dynamic steering during analysis, enabling you to butt in during a simulation and, for example, change control parameters (like time-step size or underrelaxation factors), boundary conditions, or particular models. A variety of reports and monitors are user-definable, including forces over certain boundary regions, area or mass averaged quantities, residual norms, and variable values at a given point or line in space. STARCCM+ also contains a suite of turbulence models.

STAR-CCM+‘s polyhedral cell functionality can import meshes from most leading grid-generation systems, including those of STAR-CD, ICEM, GridGen, and Fluent/Gambit. The software also embeds within most major MCAD systems, and it can run on Windows XP machines. Additionally, it runs on dual-core workstations, high-performance computers, and most 64-bit Linux-class systems. Version 1.08 also supports supercomputer MPIs (message passing interfaces).

For complete details, click here.