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Physics Simulation
Simcenter STAR-CCM+ can model a wide range of physics phenomena including fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, heat transfer, electromagnetism, and chemical reactions. Scenarios with multiple time scales can be solved within the same simulation.
Virtual Disk Model
The virtual disk model is based upon the principle of representing propellers, turbines, rotors, fans, and so on, as an actuator disk. The actuator disk treatment is practical when you are concerned about the influence of the rotor/propeller behavior on the flow rather than knowing about the detailed interactions between the flow and the blades of the rotating device.
Virtual Disk Workflow
Activate the virtual disk model as an optional physical model from the Physics Model Selection dialog of the relevant physics continuum.
Setting up the User Defined Method
You set up the user defined method similar to the other methods of the virtual disk model in that you define the geometry and its orientation. Additionally, the user defined method requires that you specify a virtual disk resolution and the location of the inflow velocity plane with respect to the location of the virtual disk. You must specify a user-defined volume source to model a rotating device. For this specification, different methods are available such as tables, field functions, or user coding.
Inflow Velocity Plane
The inflow velocity plane is located upstream of the virtual disk and is oriented with respect to the direction of the virtual disk normal, that is, with respect to the Z direction of the disk local coordinate system. This plane is discretized using the same resolution as the radial and azimuthal virtual disk resolution.

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Physics Simulation
Simcenter STAR-CCM+ can model a wide range of physics phenomena including fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, heat transfer, electromagnetism, and chemical reactions. Scenarios with multiple time scales can be solved within the same simulation.
- Defining Physics Workflow
  Simcenter STAR-CCM+ contains a wide range of physics models and methods for the simulation of single- and multi-phase fluid flow, heat transfer, turbulence, solid stress, dynamic fluid body interaction, aeroacoustics, and related phenomena. These physics models are all selected using a physics continuum.
- Setting Up Physics
  This section provides information on how to set up physics models in STAR-CCM+.
- Running Physics Simulations
  This part of the documentation describes preparation and procedures for running a Simcenter STAR-CCM+ simulation.
- Motion
  In general, motion can be defined as the change in position of a body with respect to a certain reference frame.
- Space
  The primary function of the Space models in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ is to provide methods for computing and accessing mesh metrics. Examples of mesh metrics include cell volume and centroid, face area and centroid, cell and face indexes, and skewness angle.
- Time
  The primary function of the time models in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ is to provide solvers that control the iteration and/or unsteady time-stepping.
- Mesh Motion and Adaption
  Many simulations that involve motion or geometry change require you to move or deform the mesh. Other simulations require localized mesh adaption in order to achieve an accurate solution.
- Materials
  Material models simulate substances, including various mixtures.
- Fluid Flow
  Many engineering design projects require you to predict the effect of flowing fluids on containing structures or immersed objects. While you can analyse simple scenarios with hand calculations, complex scenarios require you to apply numerical methods for accurate solutions.
- Viscous Flow
  Viscous Flow is a finite element approach for use with viscoelastic materials and other highly viscous non-Newtonian fluids, such as liquid plastics and rubber, dough and similar foodstuffs, molten glass, and mud. Viscoelastic materials resemble elastic materials, but also exhibit viscous effects, rebounding slowly from deformations.
- Passive Scalars
  Passive scalars are user-defined variables of arbitrary value, assigned to fluid phases or individual particles. They are passive because they do not affect the physical properties of the simulation. An intuitive way to think of passive scalars is as tracer dye in a fluid, but with numerical values instead of colors, and with no appreciable mass or volume.
- Heat Transfer
  Heat transfer is the study of energy in transit due to a temperature difference in a medium or between media. Heat transfer extends thermodynamic analysis through the study of the modes of energy transfer and through development of relations to calculate energy transfer rates.
- Species
  This chapter provides information about the chemical species models in Simcenter STAR-CCM+. A species model is activated whenever a multi-component liquid or multi-component gas is chosen from the Material model section of the Physics Model Selection dialog.
- Porous Media
  Simcenter STAR-CCM+ allows you to simulate the transport of a fluid or energy (e.g. heat, electrical charge) through porous materials using the concept that the action of the porous media can be represented using appropriate loss (or 'diffusion') coefficients.
- Adjoint
  The adjoint method is an efficient means to predict the influence of many design parameters and physical inputs on some engineering quantity of interest, that is, on the engineering objective of the simulation. In other words, it provides the sensitivity of the objective (output) with respect to the design variables (input).
- Fans and Blowers
  Simcenter STAR-CCM+ provides models for axial and radial fans where classical fan laws apply.
- Virtual Disk Model
  The virtual disk model is based upon the principle of representing propellers, turbines, rotors, fans, and so on, as an actuator disk. The actuator disk treatment is practical when you are concerned about the influence of the rotor/propeller behavior on the flow rather than knowing about the detailed interactions between the flow and the blades of the rotating device.
  - Virtual Disk Workflow
    Activate the virtual disk model as an optional physical model from the Physics Model Selection dialog of the relevant physics continuum.
    - Specifying the Disk Orientation
      In addition to the geometric dimensions and the origin of the virtual disk, specify its orientation.
    - Setting Up the Body Force Propeller Method
      The setup of the virtual disk of the body force propeller method does not require you to create a separate region in which the model is applied. You create the shape of the virtual disk by specifying the relevant parameters such as radius, thickness, and orientation to an existing mesh. To verify the dimensions and orientation of the virtual disk, you can visualize it by using virtual disk specific field functions.
    - Setting Up the 1D Momentum Method
      Similar to the other virtual disk methods available, the setup of the virtual disk for the 1D momentum method does not require the creation of a separate region to which the method is then applied. Instead, you create the shape of the virtual disk by specifying the relevant parameters such as radius, thickness, and orientation to an existing mesh.
    - Setting the Inflow Specification
      The Body Force Propeller Method and the 1D Momentum Method require you to set the inflow specification of the virtual disk. Based on the selected inflow specification method, you either set an inflow velocity vector and density, or these values are calculated from the flow field. The virtual disk uses these inflow quantities for the computation of the advance ratio, in combination with the operation point of a propeller.
    - Setting Up the Blade Element Method
      Similar to the body force propeller method, the setup of the virtual disk for the blade element method does not require the creation of a separate region to which the method is then applied. Instead, you create the shape of the virtual disk by specifying the relevant parameters such as radius, thickness, and orientation to an existing mesh.
    - Setting up the User Defined Method
      You set up the user defined method similar to the other methods of the virtual disk model in that you define the geometry and its orientation. Additionally, the user defined method requires that you specify a virtual disk resolution and the location of the inflow velocity plane with respect to the location of the virtual disk. You must specify a user-defined volume source to model a rotating device. For this specification, different methods are available such as tables, field functions, or user coding.
      - Disk Resolution
        The user defined method is based on the interpolation methodology of the blade element method and extends it to three dimensions. The cylindrical virtual disk is associated with the cells of the underlying volume mesh. The disk resolution that you specify controls this association. Each element or bucket of this cylindrical three-dimensional virtual disk mesh is associated with a number of cells on the underlying volume mesh. A bucket is a cylindrical sector whose radial position, angular extent, and thickness are controlled by the user-specified disk resolution.
      - Inflow Velocity Plane
        The inflow velocity plane is located upstream of the virtual disk and is oriented with respect to the direction of the virtual disk normal, that is, with respect to the Z direction of the disk local coordinate system. This plane is discretized using the same resolution as the radial and azimuthal virtual disk resolution.
    - Setting Up Virtual Disk Mesh Refinement
      The Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) framework in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ includes a model-driven option for the Virtual Disk Model.
    - Visualizing the Virtual Disk (and the Inflow Velocity Plane)
      You can visualize the previously defined virtual disk by use of a field function that become available when the virtual disk model is activated: Indicator of the virtual disk. If you activated the Body Force Propeller method, you can visualize the inflow velocity plane (or sampled velocity plane) in a similar fashion using the field function: Inflow plane marker of virtual disk. Each field function is then input into a derived part of the type threshold.
    - Reporting Virtual Disk Results
  - Virtual Disk Model Reference
    The Virtual Disk model uses approximation methods to model the fluid dynamical effect of rotating disks without discretizing the real disk geometry such as propellers, rotors, fans and so on. The properties of this model are as follows:
- Turbulence
  Most fluid flows of engineering interest are characterized by irregularly fluctuating flow quantities.
- Transition
  The term transition refers to the phenomenon of laminar to turbulence transition in boundary layers. A transition model in combination with a turbulence model predicts the onset of transition in a turbulent boundary layer.
- Wall Distance
  Wall distance is a parameter that represents the distance from a cell centroid to the nearest wall face with a non-slip boundary condition. Various physical models require this parameter to account for near-wall effects.
- Radiation
  The Radiation Model is the gateway, or entry point to all of the radiation modeling capabilities of Simcenter STAR-CCM+. This section describes Simcenter STAR-CCM+’s radiation modeling.
- Aeroacoustics
  Aeroacoustics investigates the aerodynamic generation of sound.
- Reacting Flow
  Simcenter STAR-CCM+ provides a selection of models that you can use to simulate a wide range of reacting flow applications.
- Internal Combustion Engines
  In an internal combustion engine (ICE), for example a gasoline engine, the process of combustion takes place in a cylinder (or cylinders) within the engine. The working fluid is a fuel and oxidizer mixture (usually air), which reacts to form combustion products.
- Multiphase Flow
  Multiphase flow is a term which refers to the flow and interaction of several phases within the same system where distinct interfaces exist between the phases. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ considers flow options where phases coexist as: gas bubbles in liquid, liquid droplets in gas, and/or solid particles in gas or liquid, and/or (large scale) free surface flows.
- Dynamic Fluid Body Interaction
  Dynamic Fluid Body Interaction (DFBI) in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ allows you to simulate the motion of a 6-DOF body with the displacement and rotation resulting from the defined mechanical and multiphysics interaction (flow, DEM, solid stress, EMAG).
- Harmonic Balance
  Some unsteady flows have a regularly repeating flow pattern, that is, they are time-periodic. Consider the flow from a fan blade passing across the entrance to a duct. Measurements of the instantaneous flow just within the duct would show a regularly repeating pattern. If the flow disturbances are sufficiently large, and propagate to the end of the duct, measurements of the unsteady flow at any point within the duct show repeating patterns. Such time-periodic patterns can be expressed using Fourier series.
- Solid Stress
  Simcenter STAR-CCM+ allows you to model the response of a solid continuum to applied loads, including mechanical loads and thermal loads that result from changes in the solid temperature.
- Electromagnetism
  Simcenter STAR-CCM+ allows you to model engineering applications involving electromagnetic phenomena. Example applications are electric motors, electric switches, and transformers, which can be modeled based on the classical theory of Electromagnetism.
- Electrochemistry
  Electrochemistry is the study of chemical reactions which occur due to an imposed electrical charge, or a difference in electrical potential at a boundary between a conductor–such as a metal–and an electrolyte. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ provides models that allow you to simulate batteries, corrosion, etching, and other electrochemical reactions.
- Electric Circuits
  Electrical circuits are conducting loops of interconnected electrical components, such as batteries, power sources, resistors, and inductors.
- Plasma
  Plasma is a state of matter similar to a gas that is composed partially or completely of charged particles such as ions and electrons which are not bound to each other.
- Batteries
  You can simulate batteries in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ using battery cells and battery cycling procedures that are defined either directly in Simcenter STAR-CCM+, or in the external software package Simcenter Battery Design Studio.
- Casting
  Casting simulations are performed using transient multiphase simulations using the VOF model with solidification. Conjugate heat transfer is applied between the solidifying melt and the solid mold.
- Region Sources
  This section provides some guidelines on how to use region sources for some common problems.
- Cell Quality Remediation
  The Cell Quality Remediation model helps you get solutions on a poor-quality mesh. This model identifies poor-quality cells, using a set of predefined criteria, such as Skewness Angle exceeding a certain threshold. Once these cells and their neighbors have been marked, the computed gradients in these cells are modified in such a way as to improve the robustness of the solution.
- Guidelines for Applying Simcenter STAR-CCM+
  This part of the documentation provides guidelines on applying Simcenter STAR-CCM+ models to your applications.
- Common Solvers Reference
  In Simcenter STAR-CCM+, solvers compute the solution during the simulation run.

Inflow Velocity Plane

The inflow velocity plane is located upstream of the virtual disk and is oriented with respect to the direction of the virtual disk normal, that is, with respect to the Z direction of the disk local coordinate system. This plane is discretized using the same resolution as the radial and azimuthal virtual disk resolution.

The inner and outer radius of the velocity plane match to the inner and outer virtual disk radii, respectively. Based on the user-specified radial and azimuthal disk resolution, the velocity plane is resolved by a two-dimensional polar mesh that is divided into buckets similar to the virtual disk. Each bucket is associated with a number of cells on the volume mesh. The velocity and density of the flow field is volume-averaged over the bucket. The averaged velocity vector is then transformed into the local coordinate system of the virtual disk. The resulting volume-averaged velocity and density of a velocity plane bucket are interpolated to the corresponding bucket on the virtual disk mesh.

The following diagram demonstrates the interpolation procedure:

A bucket on the inflow plane with a particular $(r, θ)$ coordinate is associated with the same $(r, θ)$ coordinate on the virtual disk mesh. Thus, all buckets with the same $(r, θ)$ coordinates, but varying z coordinates have the same density and velocity values. These values are available as field functions User Defined Inflow Plane Density of [Virtual Disk] and User Defined Inflow Plane Velocity of [Virtual Disk]. You cannot visualize these field functions on the underlying volume mesh. You use these field functions to access the flow field information to compute the volumetric source term using one of the methods of the User Source Term Profile.