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Tutorials
Tutorials show you how to use Simcenter STAR-CCM+ for various applications in a step-by-step format with recommendations for setup, initialization and steps of the solution process specific to the application. Macro and simulation files are available for download for a large proportion of cases.
Heat Transfer and Radiation
The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for heat transfer, radiation, and thermal comfort.
Electronics Cooling Toolset: Graphics Card Cooling
When you are positioning fans that cool electronic components, the Electronics Cooling Toolset allows you to assess the impact that they have on removing heat. By comparing multiple designs, you can decide which arrangement gives you the best performance.
Generating the Mesh
Create the volume mesh for the graphics card components, the fans, and the air volume.

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Tutorials
Tutorials show you how to use Simcenter STAR-CCM+ for various applications in a step-by-step format with recommendations for setup, initialization and steps of the solution process specific to the application. Macro and simulation files are available for download for a large proportion of cases.
- Using Tutorial Macros and Files
  Macros, input files, and final simulation files for a range of tutorials are provided as an optional download package on the Support Center website. These macros and final simulation files are provided as an aid to the written tutorials, so that you can check your final results against the downloaded files, or against a simulation that is built and run using the macros.
- Introduction
  Welcome to the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ introductory tutorial. In this tutorial, you explore the important concepts and workflow. Complete this tutorial before attempting any others.
- Foundation Tutorials
  The foundation tutorials showcase the major features of Simcenter STAR-CCM+ in a series of short tutorials.
- Geometry
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for creating and working with parts and 3D-CAD.
- Mesh
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various STAR-CCM+ features for building CFD meshes.
- Incompressible Flow
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for incompressible fluid flows as well as porosity and solution recording
- Compressible Flow
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for compressible fluid flows as well as harmonic balance.
- Heat Transfer and Radiation
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for heat transfer, radiation, and thermal comfort.
  - Conjugate Heat Transfer: Heated Fin Introduction
    This tutorial incorporates both multi-region conjugate heat transfer and natural convection in a Simcenter STAR-CCM+ simulation.
  - Simulation Operations: Multi-Timescale Conjugate Heat Transfer
    Through simulation operations, Simcenter STAR-CCM+ provides an automated methodology by which you can include a multiple time-scale workflow in a single simulation.
  - Simulation Operations: Transient-transient Multi-Timescale Conjugate Heat Transfer
    An important analysis for automotive applications is to simulate the thermal behavior of components during cold-start conditions. As the timescales involved in fluctuating fluid behavior often varies significantly from the timescales in solid thermal behavior, it is not efficient to run an implicitly coupled conjugate heat transfer simulation. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ provides a coupling strategy that permits distinct transient timescales for the solid and fluid components.
  - Multi-Part Solid: Graphics Card Cooling
    This tutorial demonstrates how you can model multiple solid parts in a single continuum using the Multi-Part Solid physics model.
  - Natural Convection: Concentric Cylinders Introduction
    This tutorial demonstrates how to solve a natural convection problem in Simcenter STAR-CCM+.
  - Electronics Cooling Toolset: Natural Convection JEDEC
    Although many electronic devices benefit from cooling fans in removing excess heat, some devices rely on natural convection only. The Electronics Cooling Toolset includes a method for estimating cooling due to natural convection.
  - Electronics Cooling Toolset: Graphics Card Cooling
    When you are positioning fans that cool electronic components, the Electronics Cooling Toolset allows you to assess the impact that they have on removing heat. By comparing multiple designs, you can decide which arrangement gives you the best performance.
    - Prerequisites
      This tutorial guides you through the setup of the graphics card cooling simulation using the dedicated Electronics Cooling Toolset in Simcenter STAR-CCM+.
    - Launching the Electronics Cooling Toolset and Naming the Simulation
      Create a new simulation, launch the Electronics Cooling Toolset, and name the simulation eCoolToolset_GraphicsCardTutorial.sim.
    - Defining the Setup
      Set up the solution physics and materials for the solid components and the flow domain. For the solver, reduce the maximum number of iterations.
    - Importing the CAD Model
      The setup of the graphics card components and the air volume starts from a CAD geometry in Parasolid format.
    - Setting up the Components
      Create Custom QuickParts for the imported graphics card components. At the inlet and outlet patches of the PC tower case, place templated Axial Fan QuickParts.
    - Extracting the Air Volume
      Define the air domain that fills the void between the graphics card, the axial fans, and the PC tower case.
    - Generating the Mesh
      Create the volume mesh for the graphics card components, the fans, and the air volume.
    - Preparing the Scene for Visualization
      Add two displayers to the default scene: one to display the velocity magnitude on a plane cutting through the tower case, and another to display the temperature on the graphics card.
    - Preparing the Temperature Report
      Graphics cards operate effectively within a certain operation temperature range. To check the maximum, minimum, and average temperature values of the graphics card, create a report.
    - Running the Simulation
      The simulation is now set up and ready to run.
    - Analyzing the Results
      View the results of the converged simulation and determine the maximum, minimum, and average temperatures from the graphics card.
    - Summary
      The Electronics Cooling Toolset: Graphics Card Cooling tutorial uses a graphics card in a PC tower case to introduce various features of the Electronics Cooling Toolset.
  - Dual Stream Heat Exchanger: Car Radiator
    Heat exchangers are devices that efficiently transfer heat from one medium to another. Some prominent examples of heat exchanger applications include car radiators, such as the one used in this tutorial, power plants and air-conditioning.
  - Surface-to-Surface Radiation: Thermal Insulator
    This tutorial incorporates gray thermal radiation in a Simcenter STAR-CCM+ simulation.
  - Multiband Surface-to-Surface Radiation: Solar Collector
    This tutorial uses the simulation created for the Surface-to-Surface Radiation: Thermal Insulator.
  - Photon Monte Carlo Radiation: Headlamp
    Thermal management simulations of headlamp applications allow you to identify temperature hotspots that can cause damage to the headlamp. Modifying the design—for example, including heat shields in the right places—leads to better and more durable designs.
  - Thermal Comfort: Car Cabin
    Comfort is one of the main factors that consumers consider when deciding how they travel. Therefore, passenger comfort is one of the key criteria that influence the design process of enclosed spaces such as a car or aircraft cabin.
  - Parts-Based Shells: Exhaust Pipe
    Simcenter STAR-CCM+ provides support for thin-walled structures that are best represented by a single-cell layer during simulation. These single-cell layers are known as shells. One of the main advantages of using shell elements is that it reduces the computational time and resources required for simulations.
- Multiphase Flow
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for simulating multiphase fluid flow problems
- Discrete Element Method
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for simulating Discrete Element Method problems
- Motion
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various STAR-CCM+ features for simulating problems with moving geometries and meshes, dynamic fluid body interaction, and rigid body motion:
- Reacting Flow
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for simulating reacting flows such as combustion.
- Solid Stress
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for computing deformation, strain, and stresses in solid regions. They also show how such computations can be coupled to the fluid behavior in an analysis of fluid-structure interaction.
- Aeroacoustics
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for solving aeroacoustic simulations.
- Electromagnetism
  The following tutorials illustrate features for solving problems that involve electromagnetic fields.
- Electrochemistry
  The following tutorial demonstrates chemical reactions induced by an electrical current.
- Battery
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for setting up a battery model:
- Automation
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ automation and macro features.
- Design Exploration
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various features for running design exploration studies in Design Manager.
- Coupling with CAE Codes
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for coupling with CAE codes:
- Analysis Methods
  The tutorials in this set illustrate various Simcenter STAR-CCM+ features for analysing and visualizing simulation data.
- Simcenter STAR-CCM+ In-cylinder
  The tutorials in this set illustrate features for simulating internal combustion engines in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ using the dedicated add-on Simcenter STAR-CCM+ In-cylinder.

Generating the Mesh

Create the volume mesh for the graphics card components, the fans, and the air volume.

For this tutorial, leave the overall mesh settings as default, but refine the mesh on the fans:

Right-click the Mesh > Custom Controls node and select New > Surface Control.
In the Edit dialog, set Name to Fans_SurfaceControl.
Click the Surfaces text box, select the Inlet Fan and the Outlet Fan QuickParts, and click OK.
For the Target Size, select Specify Custom Value from the drop-down menu and set the value to 20.0.
Click Apply, then Close.

To generate the mesh:

Click (Generate Volume Mesh) in the Mesh Generation toolbar.
The mesh generation process takes several seconds, depending on the specifications of your computer.

To visualize the mesh, hide the default displayer and create a mesh displayer:

Right-click the Scenes > Electronics Cooling 1 > Default Displayer node and select Toggle Visibility.
Right-click the Scenes > Electronics Cooling 1 node and select New Displayer.
In the Edit dialog, set Name to Mesh.
Click the Drawable Items text box and select all QuickParts.
From the Display Mesh drop-down menu, select the Volume Mesh option.
Click OK.
Click (Make Scene Transparent) in the Visualization toolbar.
The mesh of the fluid domain is shown below.

To inspect the mesh on the graphics card:

Right-click the Scenes > Electronics Cooling 1 > Mesh node and select Edit Displayer.
Click the Drawable Items text box and deselect Extract Volume, Inlet Fan, and Outlet Fan.
Click Apply, then Close.
The following screenshot shows the mesh on the graphics card:

The mesh is relatively coarse. It is suitable for this tutorial to save computational expense. For an industrial analysis, a finer mesh would be required.
Save the simulation .