USER GUIDE

STAR-CCM+ Version 8.06

2013 CD-adapco
STAR CCM+ User Guide ii
Version 8.06
Contents
Navigating Help 1
New Features for 8.06 2
New Tutorials for 8.06 3
Using STAR-CCM+ 4
What Is STAR-CCM+? 5
Using Online Help 10
Browsing the Online Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Accessing Context Sensitive Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Using the Navigation Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Using the Toolbar Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Changing the Default Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Understanding Typographic Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
What Are the Important Concepts? 21
What is the Client-Server Architecture? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
What Is the Client Workspace? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
What Are Simulations? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
What Are 3D-CAD Models? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
What Are Parts? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
What Are Continua?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
What Are Models? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
What Are Regions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
What Are Boundaries? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
What Are Interfaces? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
What Are Solvers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
What Are Reports, Monitors and Plots? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
What Are Scenes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
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What Is The General Workflow? 49
Preparing the Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Defining the Simulation Topology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Generating the Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Defining the Physics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Preparing for Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Running the Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Analyzing the Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Working with Mixed or Double Precision 67
Advantages and Limitations of a Double Precision Simulation . . . . . 68
Launching STAR-CCM+ 69
Launching a Client on Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Launching a Client on Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Working with Simulations 75
Creating a New Simulation Interactively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Loading an Existing Simulation Interactively . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Understanding Interactive Startup Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Creating and Opening Simulations from the Command Line in
Serial Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Starting Remote Servers from the Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Using the Simulation Pop-Up Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Saving Simulations to File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Closing the Simulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Closing the Client Workspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Viewing and Editing the Log File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Using the Summary Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Using the STAR-CCM+ Workspace 117
Using the Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
The Object Selection Dialog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Using the Title Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Using the Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Using the Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Using the Explorer Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Using the Table Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Using the Properties Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Using the Graphics Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Using the Output Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
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Using Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Working With Clients and Servers 357
What Is Client-Server? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
What Is a Client? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Running the Client in Batch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
What Is a Server? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Disconnecting from the Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Connecting to the Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Configuring the Server to Shutdown When Idle . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Closing the Server Automatically Upon Solver Completion. . . . . . . 382
Working with Remote Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
Starting a Server without a Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Displaying Diagnostic Messages from the Server and Client . . . . . . 386
Setting Network Binding Order for Failed Visualization Connections . . 389
The Server Processes Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Working With Parallel Servers 391
What Is a Parallel Server? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
Selecting the MPI Implementation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
Using a Local Multi-Core Workstation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
Using a Remote Multi-Core Workstation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
Using a Cluster of Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Starting a Proxy Server on a Host . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Balancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Getting Parallel Help through the Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Viewing the Partitioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Using Batch Management Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
Cluster Node Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
Expert MPI Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
Running Distributed Parallel Simulations on
Multiple Windows Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
Command-Line Reference 438
Working with .ini Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Setting Conditions and Values 447
What Are Conditions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
What Are Profiles? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
What Are Values? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
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Setting Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Setting Profile Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Setting Values Using the Composite Vector Profile Method. . . . . . . 456
Setting Values Using a Constant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
Setting Values Using a Composite Array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
Setting Values Using a Constant Array. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
Setting Values Using a Field Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Setting Values Using an Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
Setting Values Using Radial Equilibrium. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
Setting Values Using a Normal Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Setting Values Using a Normal Distribution Array . . . . . . . . . . 468
Setting Values Using a Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
Setting Values Using a Feature Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
Setting Values Using a Uniform Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
Setting Values Using a Uniform Distribution Array . . . . . . . . . . 499
Setting Values Using User Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Setting Values Using a Composite Symmetric Tensor . . . . . . . . . 501
Setting Values Using a Composite Tensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502
Setting Values Using a Principal Tensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Setting Values Using an Axisymmetric Tensor . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Setting Values Using an Isotropic Tensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
Setting Values Using a Polynomial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
Copying Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514
Defining Dimensionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
Setting Multiple Corresponding Conditions Simultaneously . . . . . . 515
Setting Multiple Corresponding Values Simultaneously . . . . . . . . 516
Setting Reference Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
STAR-CCM+ Licensing 522
STAR-CCM+ Product Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522
Power-on-Demand Licensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
STAR-CCM+ Add-on Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542
Getting Support 548
Gathering Information on the Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Preparing an E-Mail Message for Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
Troubleshooting Graphics 558
Resolving Hardware Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558
Working Without Hardware Acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
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A Scene Will Not Open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
Improving the Rendering of Concave Faces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562
Z-Fighting Appears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
Credits 565
Modeling Geometry 571
Using 3D-CAD 573
Introducing 3D-CAD Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574
Sketches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607
Constraining a Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670
Dimensioning Sketches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 690
Creating Bodies From Sketches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709
Working with Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749
Working with Faces and Edges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 797
Working with Patterns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 824
Working with Fillets and Chamfers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 838
Working with Design Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 848
Working with Volume Extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 859
Removing Unwanted Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 870
Updating the Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 874
Importing Geometry into 3D-CAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 877
Exporting Geometry from 3D-CAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 889
Working with 3D-CAD Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 893
Importing Geometry 901
What Is a Surface Mesh? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902
What is Neutral Format Data? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 903
What is Native CAD Data? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 903
What is XML Data? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 904
Importing Surface Data into STAR-CCM+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 905
Importing Surfaces Using an XML File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 918
Importing Multiple Surface Data Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 921
Reviewing the Surface Data Import Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 922
Using Surface Data Import Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 923
Checking the Surface Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 924
Understanding Geometry Parts 926
What Is a Geometry Part? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 927
Creating and Importing Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 941
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Organizing Assemblies Using Composite Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . 962
Using Part Contact Data to Create Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . 968
Updating Part Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 993
Managing Geometry Parts 996
What Are Tags?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 997
Creating User Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 998
Applying a Tag to a Part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001
Removing a Tag from a Part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1014
Deleting a Tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1019
What Is Meta Data? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1020
What Are Filters? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1023
Creating a New Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1025
Using Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1038
Deleting Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1039
Manipulating Parts 1040
Retessellating a Part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1041
Transforming a Part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1042
Duplicating a Part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1051
Combining Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053
Performing Boolean Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1055
Splitting Non-Contiguous Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1066
Splitting a Part by Surface Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1067
Replacing a Part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1070
Manipulating Part Surfaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1072
Manipulating Part Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1094
Repairing Part Surfaces and Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100
Exporting Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1102
Getting the Face Count of a Part. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1108
Editing Imported Parts in 3D-CAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1109
Part Operations Reference Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1114
Preparing Surfaces 1120
Launching the Surface Preparation Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1123
Diagnostics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1132
Repair Surface Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1157
Repair Features Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1265
Offset Faces/Edges Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1277
Edit Connected Surfaces Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1292
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Merge and Imprint Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1302
Intersect/Boolean Faces Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1329
Entity Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1345
Display Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1390
Surface and Curve Edit Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1406
Set Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1412
Undo and Redo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1419
Query Diagnostic Responses from Java Macros . . . . . . . . . . . 1419
Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1432
Pop-Up Menu of the Surface Preparation Graphics Window . . . . . 1437
Displaying the Geometry 1438
Defining The Simulation Topology 1440
Assigning Geometry Parts to Regions 1441
Assigning Parts to Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1442
Assigning Part Surfaces to Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1455
Assigning Part Curves to Feature Curves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1462
Transforming Regions 1466
Scaling Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1468
Translating Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1470
Rotating Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1472
Reflect Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1475
Region Manipulation 1477
Region Combination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1478
Region Splitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1482
Region Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1491
Regions Manager Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1493
Regions Manager Pop-Up Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1494
Manipulating Boundaries 1495
Combining Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1496
Fusing Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1498
Merging Boundaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1502
Splitting Boundaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1506
Creating New Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1532
Projecting Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1534
Selecting Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1540
Copying Boundary Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1541
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Properties of the Boundaries Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1541
Pop-Up Menu of the Boundaries Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1541
Performing Surface Boolean Operations 1542
What are Surface Boolean Operations? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1543
Applying a Surface Boolean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1545
Working with Interfaces 1557
Working with Interfaces between Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1561
Working with Interfaces between Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . 1561
Boundary Interface Types Reference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1599
Meshing 1631
Meshing Overview 1633
Comparison of Meshing Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1633
Mesh Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1636
Parallel Meshing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1639
Base Size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1642
Parts-Based Meshing 1645
Preparing Geometry for Meshing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1646
Surface Wrapping the Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1659
Generating Surface and Volume Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1677
Mesh Refinement in a Specified Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1685
Creating a Parts-Based Mesh with Baffles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1690
Mesh Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1694
Mesh Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1739
Mesh Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1745
Custom Mesh Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1758
Parts Meshes Continua . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1783
Region-Based Meshing 1785
Creating a Region-Based Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1785
Feature Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1810
Using Feature Curves to Repair a Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1824
Volumetric Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1836
Mesh Continua . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1878
Surface Meshers 1884
Surface Meshers Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1885
Surface Wrapper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1886
Surface Remesher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1910
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Automatic Surface Repair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1925
Surface Mesher Controls and Values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1933
Volume Meshers 1947
Volume Meshers Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1949
Polyhedral Mesher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1951
Tetrahedral Mesher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1961
Trimmed Mesher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1963
Prism Layer Mesher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1985
Advancing Layer Mesher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2023
Extruder Mesher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2044
Thin Mesher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2056
Generalized Cylinder Mesher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2069
Shelling Mesher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2085
Volume Mesher Controls and Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2097
Mesh Refinement 2111
Wake Refinement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2112
Field Function Mesh Refinement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2125
Directed Meshing 2139
Preparing CAD Parts for Directed Meshing. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2141
Launching a Directed Mesh Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2142
Choosing Source and Target Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2144
Meshing a Stack of Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2147
What Is Patch Meshing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2155
Creating Source Mesh Using Patches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2157
Creating a Source Mesh Using an Existing Mesh . . . . . . . . . . 2174
Deleting a Source Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2183
Creating a Volume Distribution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2184
Deleting a Volume Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2189
Generating the Directed Volume Mesh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2190
Checking the Volume Mesh 2193
What Is a Valid Mesh? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2194
What Is Mesh Quality?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2195
Running Mesh Diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2197
Checking the Mesh Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2204
Using the Connected Cells Field Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2207
Checking the Skewness Angle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2208