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STAR-CCM+ Product Manager Jean-Claude Ercolanelli explains: “Our customers are increasingly becoming involved in sustainable engineering design. Understanding the heat-transfer mechanisms operating in any engineering process is critical when developing energy efficient, sustainable products. For STAR-CCM+ V2.08 we wanted to provide our users with a complete set of physics models for solving engineering problems that involve heat-transfer.”
Conjugate Heat Transfer Simulations Streamlined
Engineers are typically only interested in fluid temperatures in as much as they influence the thermal loading of some nearby structure. Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) analysis allows engineers to account for conduction through solids and to calculate the resulting temperature distribution within them. Until now, the largest obstacle to performing conjugate heat transfer (CHT) simulations of complex structures (such as internal combustion engines), has typically been encountered while trying to create a computational mesh that accurately represents both solid and coolant geometries.
Using STAR-CCM+ V2.08 this obstacle is completely overcome. STAR-CCM+ V2.08 includes a robust meshing methodology that allows users to automatically generate meshes of both the fluid and solid geometries, no matter how complex they might be. This approach ensures that a conformal mesh is maintained at solid-fluid interfaces, guaranteeing one-to-one connectivity between cells at either side of the boundary, and removes the need for mapping or interpolation between the physical domains. To facilitate accurate resolution of flow and thermal gradients close to the interface, boundary layer cells are automatically generated on the fluid side of the interface and, if required, on the solid side.
Simulating reality with the new Nucleate Boiling Model
Nucleate boiling is increasingly being harnessed as a mechanism for improved heat transfer in coolant systems. However, while controlled boiling can lead to extremely efficient heat transfer, uncontrolled vapour generation can lead to the onset of film boiling, which, if not managed, will generally lead to the catastrophic failure of a component.
Rather than rely on ad-hoc modification of wall heat-transfer coefficient, STAR-CCM+ V2.08 accounts for boiling explicitly, using a robust and validated model for sub-cooled nucleate boiling which models both the heat-transfer process and generation, transport and destruction of vapor. Using this approach, engineers are able to predict not only the onset of nucleate boiling (and the operating conditions under which it occurs), but how a given cooling concept reacts to the boiling, both in terms of its influence on the flow-field and on the temperature distribution within the solid part.
Expanded Thermal and Solar Radiation capabilities
STAR-CCM+ V2.08 includes an enhanced capability for simulating both long and short wave radiation. Using automatic parallel view-factor calculation, STAR-CCM+ V2.08 makes simulations involving radiation heat-transfer practical, even for simulations that involve complex geometries or large domains.
The radiation capability allows users to simulate component temperatures (e.g. for an automotive underhood simulation), room temperature distribution (e.g. in data centers) or gaseous radiation (e.g. for calculation the radiation signature of a flare on an oil-rig). In addition the combination of the easy inclusion of mannequins and the availability of dedicated thermal comfort engineering post-processing tools make it an ideal tool to analyze occupant comfort in buildings, automotive, railway and aircraft cabins.
About STAR-CCM+
From CAD models to post-processing, STAR-CCM+ delivers the entire CFD process in a single integrated software environment. This unique approach brings unrivaled ease-of-use and automation to CAD preparation, meshing, model set-up and iterative design studies, enabling your Engineers to deliver better results, faster.
Innovations such as built-in surface-wrapping, advanced automated meshing (creating either polyhedral or predominantly hexahedral volume meshes) and the ability to “copy and paste” components between models have quickly established STAR-CCM+ a reputation for producing high-quality results in a single code with minimum user effort.
From its first release in 2004, STAR-CCM+ has impressed the CFD community with its rapid pace of development. Written “from the ground up” using object-oriented programming and the latest software technology combined with outstanding ease-of-use and accuracy, STAR-CCM+ is an entirely new concept in CFD.
Try it today
STAR-CCM+ V2.08 is now available from CD-adapco’s User Services site, or from your local CD-adapco office.
STAR-CCM+ V2.08 introduces a number of key enhancements to aid in simulating engineering problems that involve heat transfer between liquids, gases and solids.
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