Ohmic Heating: Domestic Fuse
This tutorial demonstrates some of the capabilities of the Ohmic Heating model available in Simcenter STAR-CCM+.

A fuse is a safety device to protect electrical equipment against unexpected high currents. Because of the Joule effect, the current going through the thin wire inside the fuse increases its temperature. If the current hits the critical current, the wire temperature exceeds its melting point, and breaks.
The fuse assembly in this tutorial is 30 mm long and is composed of metal, ceramic, and silicium. The wire inside the ceramic enclosure is 27.5 µm in diameter and has a critical current of 7 A with ±0.7% error.
A CAD model has been prepared in which various parts are imprinted correctly on adjacent parts. When this model is imported into STAR-CCM+ (as geometry parts), coincident faces are automatically detected and used to generate part contact data. The scenario being simulated is rather simple: to increase the potential difference between the two terminals of the wire, thus inducing a current increase until it reaches the critical point.
The post-processing tools in STAR-CCM+ are used to visualize the results.