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Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2021.3 Released! What’s new?

Batteries that are reliable, yet more powerful. Airplanes that are faster, yet more efficient. Heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems that are comforting, yet greener. Structures that are lighter, yet more stable. Turbomachines that are powerful, yet cleaner. More than ever, engineers need to turn the complexity of their products into a competitive advantage. In this race for faster innovation, simulation is the key to success.

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2021.3 delivers a host of exciting new features and enhancements to help you further streamline your simulation workflows and increase their fidelity.

To download Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2021.3, please visit the Support Center

Faster, integrated setup for battery electro-thermal analysis

In the highly competitive vehicle electrification market, simulation turnaround time is critical. With the new batteries workflow, you can now perform electro-thermal simulations of battery packs entirely within Simcenter STAR-CCM+, dramatically shortening model preparation time and increasing productivity. The workflow also leverages a new equivalent circuit model, fully configurable within Simcenter STAR-CCM+ and enabling 10 times faster electro-thermal simulations while providing high fidelity prediction of heat losses and electrical behavior.

The new workflow for battery electro-thermal simulations allows for significantly improved simulation setup times

Learn more about the new battery electro-thermal simulation workflow in Simcenter STAR-CCM+


Faster bulk material simulations with the meshfree Discrete Element Method

Fluid flow can often be neglected when you simulate bulk materials for heavy equipment and process industry applications. With the meshfree DEM approach in 2021.3, geometries no longer need to be watertight and there is no need to create volume meshes or use overset meshing technology for such cases. This saves you lots of valuable engineering time and significantly reduces time to solution.

Meshfree DEM simulation of a twin extruder

Explore how to unlock the potential of the meshfree discrete element method (DEM)


Faster mesh generation for aerodynamics simulations

External aerodynamics simulations require high-quality near-wall meshes to capture turbulent flows in and around complex geometries. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2021.3 delivers a brand-new capability to generate anisotropic surface meshes with the polyhedral and advancing layer meshers (ALM), ensuring an optimized mesh distribution and refinement on wings, fins, propellers, and rotor blades while delivering a reduction in overall cell count of up to 70%.

Generation of an anisotropic surface mesh on an airplane body

But we did not just stop there. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2021.3 now also generates the polyhedral advancing layer bulk mesh in parallel to further accelerate the meshing process. Together these meshing enhancements allow you to better capture the complexity of external aerodynamics while speeding up your simulations.

Find out how to speed up aerodynamics simulations with anisotropic meshing and parallel ALM


Increased realism for HVAC aeroacoustics  

Today’s end customers are more sensitive to thermal and acoustic ride comfort than ever before. With Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2021.3, we introduce a new method for hybrid aeroacoustics simulations of HVAC systems using the Lighthill wave model. The new approach is less sensitive to mesh refinement and solver settings, making it easier and faster to produce more consistent and reliable results for designing low noise HVAC systems.

Reliable aeroacoustic simulation of an HVAC duct using the new Lighhill wave model

Read more about how to increase the fidelity and consistency of your HVAC aeroacoustic simulations


Quickly and accurately predict structural vibration modes 

Selecting a time step size for transient structural analysis with confidence requires knowledge of the natural vibration modes. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ can now extract vibration mode shapes and frequencies both for the unstressed initial configuration of a structure as well as during the simulation of the stressed structure. The eigenvalue analysis for normal modes in the modal analysis for solid mechanics enables you to ensure that complex transient structural vibration is correctly captured without relying on other structural analysis tools. 

Enhanced insights into structural simulation of a wing through Eigenvalue analysis for normal modes

Find out more about fluid-struture interaction simulation in Simcenter STAR-CCM+


Get insights into turbine performance faster and more easily

One of the challenges in developing gas turbines is in making meaningful comparisons between design candidates. With the internal flow being highly complex, circumferential averaging is essential for characterizing the overall behavior of the machine. The latest release of Simcenter STAR-CCM+ brings new tools to make design-to-design comparisons easier, removing the need for custom field functions when creating x-y plots of averaged flow parameters. This will enable you to gain insights faster and more easily than before, thanks to an improved workflow and faster averaging of results. 

1D averaging the 3D solution on a plane or surface from a turbomachinery simulation

Explore more capabilities to gain insights into turbomachinery performance with Simcenter STAR-CCM+


  

These are just a few of the new features in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2021.3 that help you model the complexity of today’s products with more ease and faster than ever. Leverage Simcenter STAR-CCM+ to innovate today, for a better tomorrow.

For more information on all the new features or to download Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2021.3, please visit the Support Center

Crowd-sourcing innovation for outstanding CFD software

Also, we invite you to our new Ideas platform allowing Simcenter STAR-CCM+ users around the globe to help shape the future direction of the software. “Ideas” allows you to suggest, vote, and comment on ideas to improve Simcenter STAR-CCM+. This will ensure a continuous stream of new features and enhancements that match your demands and enable you to achieve your engineering goals.

Find out more about the new home for your ideas and submit them today to improve Simcenter STAR-CCM+


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Simon Fischer
This article first appeared on the Siemens Digital Industries Software blog at https://blogs.stage.sw.siemens.com/simcenter/simcenter-star-ccm-2021-3-released-whats-new/