Preparing the Geometry and Generating the Mesh for Conjugate Heat Transfer Analysis

For a conjugate heat transfer (CHT) analysis, you create or import the fluid and the solid geometry in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ as a multi-part assembly. You can create or import multiple fluid and solid parts representing different materials. The different geometry parts must be connected through contacts, which are converted into interfaces when assigning parts to regions.

CHT analysis requires interface between fluid and solid bodies. For more information on interfaces, see Interfaces Overview.

To prepare the CAD geometry:
  1. Prepare the geometry using 3D-CAD or a third-party software of your choice, defining a body for the solid and a body for the fluid.
  2. Import the CAD geometry into Simcenter STAR-CCM+. If the overlapping fluid surface and the solid surface are already imprinted you can activate Create Part Contacts from Coincident Entities in the Surface Import dialog. Upon import, this option detects the coincident faces that are within the specified Coincidence Face Tolerance automatically and creates corresponding part contacts. For 3D-CAD models, you can also activate this option when converting them to 3D-CAD parts.
    The geometry objects, which correspond to the imported CAD bodies, appear in the Geometry > Parts node.
  3. If the imported parts consist of one surface only, split the surfaces to apply individual boundary conditions such as heated walls or inflow conditions for the fluid.
  4. If the contacts between the overlapping solid part and the fluid part surfaces are not created upon import, create the contacts using an appropriate method as described in Using Part Contact Data To Create Interfaces.
  5. Assign the parts to the regions. For the interface creation, it is important that you assign the fluid and the solid parts to the regions in one operation. Assign the fluid and the solid parts to different regions:
    1. Multi-select the fluid and the solid parts, right-click and select Assign Parts to Regions ...
    2. In Assign Parts to Regions dialog, select Create a Region For Each Part and choose between Create Boundary-mode Interfaces from Contacts or Create Contact-mode Interfaces from Contacts. See Interfaces Overview
      When solving for the solid temperature using the Finite Element Solid Energy model, choose Create Contact-mode Interfaces from Contacts.
    The new regions appear in the Regions node and the Interfaces node is created.
  6. Generate a parts-based volume mesh. See Generating the Surface and Volume Mesh