Creating the Coupling Zones

To exchange data between the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ boundaries and the external beams, you create coupling zones. You require two zones for each rotor blade—one zone for the external beam and one for the corresponding Simcenter STAR-CCM+ blade boundary.

To create a beam zone:
  1. Select External Links > [Link 1] > Zones > [Zone 1] and set Zone Type to Curve Zone.
    Curve zones represent 1D beams.
  2. Select [Zone 1] > Conditions > Continuum and set Continuum to the external continuum.
  3. Expand the [Zone 1] > Values node and set the following properties:
    Node Property Value
    Coordinate System Coordinate System Select a coordinate system that rotates along with the rotor.
    Radius Radius Specify the radius of the rotor.
    Twist Angle Method Specify the blade twist angle as either a constant value or a table of values (twist angle at specific control points along the blade). You can create the table in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ from imported data files (see Table (Twist Angle)).
  4. If you selected the Table (Twist Angle), select the Twist Angle > Table (Twist Angle) node and set the following properties:
    Property Value
    Table Select the table with the twist data.
    Table: Data Select the column of the table with the twist values.
You require a beam zone for every blade in the rotor. For example, to simulate a four blade rotor, you require four beam zones. To facilitate the zone creation process, Simcenter STAR-CCM+ allows you to create zones as instances of an existing zone. This method creates zones that retain the same properties of the initial zone. To create additional zones using this method:
  1. Right-click the [Zone 1] node and select Instance Zone.
To match each of the beam zones with the rotor geometry, you specify the angle offset of each zone. The angle offset specifies the clockwise rotational translation of the beam around the rotor axis from the root blade (that is, the blade associated with the first beam zone you created). For example, if [Zone 1 Instance 1] is the beam representation of a blade which is a 90 degrees clockwise rotation around the rotor axis from the [Zone 1] blade, specify an angle offset of 90.0 deg.

To specify the angle offset for a zone:

  1. Select the [Zone 1 Instance 1] > Values > Angle Offset node set Angle Offset as required.
Surface zones are used for the blade boundaries within Simcenter STAR-CCM+. To create a new surface zone:
  1. Right-click the [Link 1] > Zones node and select New.
    By default the new zone, [Zone 2], has Zone Type set to Surface Zone.
  2. Select [Zone 2] > Conditions > Continuum and set Continuum to the fluid continuum of the blade boundaries.
  3. Select [Zone 2] > Surface Parts and set Parts to the root blade boundaries.
By default, Simcenter STAR-CCM+ automatically exports the internal pressure boundary data to the output file. If you wish to add the wall shear stress boundary data:
  1. Right-click Exported Fields and select Add Mechanical Field > Wall Shear Stress.
Using a similar method as with the curve zones, you can create instances of the root blade surface zone for the remaining blades.
  1. Right-click the [Zone 2] node and select Instance Zone.
    All properties from the root blade surface zone are carried to the zone instances other than the Surface Parts.
  2. Select the [Zone 2 Instance 1] > Conditions > Surface Parts node and set Parts to the relevant blade boundary for the zone.