Defining the Physics of the Air Regions

As you are only interested in the magnetic potential solution, you model the air regions as a gas without selecting any flow model. Modeling air using a flow solver would require solving the equations of flow, which is not necessary in this case. For airgap remeshing, you require the Airgap Remeshing model.

The starting simulation already contains a physics continuum for the air regions. This continuum is assigned to the rotating and fixed air regions and to the airgap regions.
  1. Rename the Continua > Void node to Air.
  2. For the physics continuum, Air, select the following models:
    Group box Physics Model
    Space Three Dimensional (preselected)
    Time Implicit Unsteady
    Material Gas
    Optional Models Electromagnetism
    Enabled Models Gradients (selected automatically)
    Electromagnetism Finite Element Magnetic Vector Potential
    Optional Models Eddy Current Suppression (selected automatically)
    Optional Models Airgap Remeshing
At every time-step, Simcenter STAR-CCM+ remeshes the airgap regions, whereas the rest of the mesh remains fixed. The entire mesh remains conformal throughout the operation.

The Airgap Remeshing model requires you to specify the mesh operation that is executed at every time-step. When the meshing pipeline for the airgap includes multiple dependent operations, you only specify the last operation that is executed, which, in this simulation, is the volume extruder. At every time-step, Simcenter STAR-CCM+ automatically finds all dependencies and execute the required operations in order:

  1. Select the Continua > Air > Models > Airgap Remeshing node and set Mesh Operations to Airgap Volume Extruder.
    At every time-step, Simcenter STAR-CCM+ executes all mesh operations from the motion-driven transform to the volume extrusion.
    The default boundary conditions are appropriate.
  2. Save the simulation.