Physics

Fluid Mechanics

Materials

Heat Transfer

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ can simulate all modes of heat transfer in both fluid and solid materials.

• Conduction
• Convection
• Radiation (Surface to surface (S2S) with view factors for both gray and multiband, Surface and Volumetric Photon Monte Carlo, solar loads, discrete ordinate method (DOM) or P1 for participating media)

Turbulence

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ provides a choice of turbulence models for modeling different flow behaviors.

Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) models

• Spalart-Allmaras (standard)
• K-Epsilon (standard, realizable, two-layer, low-Reynolds number, elliptic blending, and lag elliptic blending)
• K-Omega (standard and SST)
• Scale-resolving hybrid (SRH) turbulence model

Reynolds Stress Transport models

• Linear pressure strain (standard and two-layer)
• Quadratic pressure strain
• Elliptic blending

Large Eddy Simulation

• Subgrid scale models (Smagorinsky, dynamic Smagorinsky, and WALE)
• Synthetic turbulence initial and boundary conditions

Detached Eddy Simulation (delayed and improved delayed)

• SST K-Omega
• Spalart-Allmaras
• Elliptic blending

Initial and Boundary Conditions for LES and DES

• Synthetic turbulence
• Anisotropic Linear Forcing (ALF)

Laminar-turbulent transition

• User-defined turbulence suppression
• Gamma ReTheta model
• Gamma model

Associated Models

• Temperature heat flux model
• Wall treatments (high-y+, low-y+, and all-y+)

Multiphase Flow (Eulerian Description)

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ provides several multiphase solvers that account for distinct fluid phases within a simulation.

Eulerian Multiphase (EMP) Segregated Flow

• Distinct conservation equations are solved for each phase
• Supported phase types are gas, liquid, and particle (granular)
• Supports interphase energy, momentum, and mass transfer
• Multiple flow regime model for capturing differing regimes in the same simulation
  • Dispersed – bubbles/droplets of one phase dispersed in another
  • Large interface – resolved free surfaces
  • Symmetric/mixed – no clear distinction between continuous and dispersed phases
• Granular phase models: granular pressure, and granular temperature transport
• Population balance models: S-Gamma or A-MUSIG
• Single component crystal growth
• Wall and bulk boiling
• Phase-level turbulence modeling
• Phase chemical reactions
• Adaptive time-step

Volume of Fluid (VOF)

• Solves single set of conservation equations plus one for volume fraction
• Tracks the free surface between immiscible fluids
• High-resolution interface capturing (HRIC) scheme
• Phase-change processes: evaporation and condensation, boiling, gas dissolution, melting and solidification
• VOF to Lagrangian resolved transition (hybrid approach)

• Wall-bound phases

Fluid Film Model

• Solves flow of thin film on a surface
• Film formation through user initialization, injection through a boundary, or impingement from other phases
• Edge or wave stripping
• Phase-change processes: evaporation and condensation, boiling, melting and solidification. Includes UNIFAC evaporation
• Mass removal from frozen film in conjunction with mesh morphing to simulate ice accretion

Dispersed multiphase (DMP)

• Lightweight approach that solves for the dispersed phase in an Eulerian manner with one-way or two-way coupling
• Can form, or be formed from, fluid films
• S-Gamma model: predicts droplet/bubble size distribution for the dispersed phase

Mixture Multiphase (MMP)

• Simplified multiphase model for modeling mixture flows
• Reduces computational effort by assuming mixture is a homogeneous single-phase system
• Supports large interface tracking and transition of larger droplets to Lagrangian

Multiphase Flow (Lagrangian Description)

Lagrangian models can simulate a wide variety of flow processes involving the transport of solid particles, liquid droplets, or gas bubbles—known as dispersed phases—by gaseous or liquid continuous phases.

Lagrangian Multiphase

• Particle equation of motion: drag, pressure gradient, virtual mass, gravity, and body forces
• Multi-component liquid and solid particles
• Heat and mass transfer including UNIFAC evaporation
• Impingement erosion
• Atomization and breakup
• Collision and coalescence
• Passive scalar interactions
• Mass transfer from and into VOF phases
• Coulomb forces

Discrete Element Method (DEM)

• Simulation of large numbers of interacting discrete objects
• Particle equation of motion—resolve rotation of particles
• Models for particle-particle contact and particle-boundary interaction
• Particle bonding and breakup
• Spheres, cylinders, capsules, polyhedral, composite, clumped, or coarse grain
• Particle-particle, particle-boundary, and particle-continuous phase heat transfer
• Erosion of walls due to particles: abrasive and impact wear
• Meshfree regions for particles that are not significantly affected by the fluid phase

Injectors for introducing particles into the Lagrangian phase

• Point, part, and surface
• Tabular
• Size distribution functions
• Hollow and solid cones (excluding DEM)
• Pressure swirl (excluding DEM)
• Lattice (only available for DEM)
• Random (only available for DEM)

Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics

SPH for powertrain lubrication

• Does not require volume mesh
• Models transient momentum-driven flows
• Optimized scalability with up to 8,000 particles per core

• Includes inlet boundary conditions

Mesh Adaption

Motion

Reacting Flows

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ offers models that simulate chemical processes that occur in combustion, polymerization, and other chemical reactions.

Fuel types

• Solid, liquid, gas

Types of reaction

• Premixed, partially premixed, and non-premixed combustion
• General gas phase chemistry
• Liquid-liquid chemistry
• Interphase reactions
• Surface reactions
• Particle reactions and coal combustion
• Polymerization

Reaction and combustion models

• Flamelet
  • Flamelet Generated Manifold model (FGM)
    • Laminar Flame Speed tabulation
  • Steady Laminar Flamelet (SLF)
  • Chemical Equilibrium
  • Flame propagation models
    • Coherent Flame model (CFM)
    • Turbulent Flame Speed Closure model (TFC)
    • Thickened Flame Model
• Reacting Species Transport
  • Complex Chemistry
    • Laminar Flame Concept
    • Eddy Dissipation Concept
    • Thickened Flame Model
    • Turbulent Flame Speed Closure model (TFC)
    • Relaxation to Chemical Equilibrium
  • Eddy Break-Up model (EBU)
    • Standard or Hybrid EBU
    • Combined Time Scale
    • Kinetics Only
    • Thickened Flame Model
  • Eddy Contact Micromixing (ECM)

Additional models

• NOx emissions
• Soot emissions
• 1D reacting channel
• Spark Ignition
• Combustor Reactor Networks
• Acoustic modal solver with thermoacoustic n-tau

Solid Mechanics

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ provides an integral finite element solver for the solution of solid mechanics, fluid-structure interaction, heat conduction, and thermal stress problems.

• Static, dynamic, and quasi-static analysis
• Adaptive time-step for dynamic analysis
• Linear and non-linear geometry with full and modified Newton matrix update
• 3D linear and quadratic solid elements: hexahedra, tetrahedra, wedge, and pyramid
• Isotropic, orthotropic, and anisotropic linear elastic materials; hyperelastic and elastoplastic materials
• Rayleigh damping
• Loads and constraints for points and surfaces; body loads
• Thermal stresses from mapped or computed temperature fields
• Cyclic symmetry boundary condition
• Bonded and small sliding frictionless contacts for conformal and non-conformal meshes
• One-way and two-way Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) with added mass pre-conditioner
• Contact modeling: frictionless contact with infinite rigid plane and with rigid parts
• Normal mode analysis (linear and nonlinear)

Adjoint Solver

Electrochemistry

Electrochemistry models in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ support studies of ion transport along with chemical and electrochemical reactions.

• Ion transport in fluids and solids, including coulombic effects
• Surface electrochemical reactions and heating at boundaries, interfaces, and in phasic porous media
• Bulk ion chemical reactions
• 3D micro-structural model for Li-Ion battery cells
• Electro-deposition coating

Plasma

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ includes electron transport to support studies of cold, non-thermal plasmas.

• Electron transport and energy
• Ion transport
• Reaction rates

Electromagnetism

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ contains electric potential and magnetic potential models that solve for the electric and magnetic fields.

• Low-Frequency Electrodynamics
  • Magnetic fields induced by electric currents, permanent magnets, and excitation coils
    • Choice of Finite Element iterative solver or Finite Volume solver
    • Transverse magnetic modes for fast axisymmetric and 2D computations
  • Electric current distribution
  • Magnetic fields with harmonic time-dependence
• Electrostatics
• Airgap remeshing
• Electric circuit editor (visual)
• Multiphysics association
  • Ohmic heating
  • Magnetohydrodynamics
  • 3D solid stress from Lorentz forces

Aeroacoustics

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ aeroacoustic models predict noise generation in fluid systems.

• Broadband noise source models
  • Curle, Goldstein axisymmetric, Proudman, Lilley, and Linearized Euler Equation (LEE)
• Acoustic Perturbation Equation (APE) solver
• Far-field propagation using Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings
• Time to frequency domain analysis tools including FFT, filters, and spectral data
• Lighthill Wave model for sound generation and propagation in incompressible fluids

Computational Rheology