Get 3D insights into lithium-ion battery cell performance. Export CFD study results to create Reduced Order Models (ROM). Automate sophisticated simulation workflows. Evaluate the thermal comfort of the passenger cabin. Plus, many more features.
With the release of Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310, we provide engineers across industries with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) capabilities to accelerate complexity modeling. Leverage exciting new capabilities to explore engineering possibilities and turn complexity into a competitive advantage.
Quickly get detailed 3D insights into battery cell performance
To virtually design reliable and high-performance lithium-ion cells, it is necessary to consider three-dimensional anisotropic effects in battery cell layers. Currently available simulation approaches neglect such effects or make crucial compromising simplifications, reducing the problem to representative descriptions of the two-dimensional battery layer.
With the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310, we are launching a unique new 3D cell design capability to design lithium-ion battery cells with high geometric and physical fidelity. This new high-fidelity cell design model enables the design of complete 3D lithium-ion cells, with geometrically resolved electrode layers, separators and flaps.
Modeled simulation leverages dedicated, easy-to-use custom trees and the new Stages feature for a customized, tailored workflow for cell designers, with industry-standard terminology and units. It provides simplified mesh setup with a few inputs and clicks, and supports dedicated industry-standard post-processing to facilitate analysis of simulation results. Capability is driven by simulation models for industry standard cell formats. With the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310 we launched the stack cell model; Cell models with cylindrical and prismatic windings will be available soon. Along with this automated workflow, the 3D cell design capability provides highly accurate electrochemical models through an improved physics-based model of the initial Newman-Doyle-Fuller formulation.
The 3D cell design feature provides detailed information about cell performance at a glance. Investigate in-plane and through-thickness ion concentration to understand local and edge effects, or predict the effect of flaps and surface cooling to design better battery cells faster.
The full potential of the tool requires the complementary battery license.
Set up gas thermal runaway ventilation simulations in minutes
Setting up gas vent thermal runaway simulation for a battery with hundreds of cells is a time-consuming and error-prone process.
Therefore, in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310, we start with consecutive launches of a dedicated workflow to speed up thermal runaway propagation simulation setup time. With the release of version 2310, we continue this effort with the integration of the gas vent configuration. As far as pre-processing is concerned, the new capability allows for very quick setup with easy selection of cell ventilation surfaces. Additionally, a dedicated field function manages the energy balance between the energy released by ventilation and that generated by the cell's internal parts, eliminating the need for complex field functions and monitors. Trigger and gas release conditions are now also simplified for some inputs. Ultimately, the workflow requires only one set of input parameters to deploy it across all battery cells. Integrated automation controls gas vent actuation upon reaching the trigger condition and post-processing is automatically managed with dedicated gas vent quantities in the “Battery Module Reports” tool.
Overall, with the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310, you will continue to benefit from rapid setup and analysis of thermal runaway simulations, now even including gas venting with minimal effort. The workflow can only be accessed in the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ Batteries add-on and therefore requires the associated add-on license.
More efficient aerovibroacoustic simulation workflow
Reduced CGNS file size and import time into Simcenter 3D through new mapping method for loosely coupled aerovibroacoustic workflow . Example: Assessment of side mirror-induced noise
Vibroacoustic simulations are typically performed in two steps: After a CFD simulation in Simcenter STAR-CCM+, Simcenter 3D is used for vibration and acoustic field analysis. The legacy workflow consisted of exporting a very large CGNS file with the CFD mesh and force information, importing this file into Simcenter 3D, and mapping the results onto a coarse acoustic mesh.
With Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310, we offer a new option to map a fine CFD mesh to a coarser acoustic mesh directly in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ before data export. This conservative maximum distance mapping ensures consistent results for the legacy process using the same mapping algorithm as Simcenter 3D, but significantly reduces the size of the resulting CGNS file. Depending on the case, the new CGNS file can be between 35% and 90% smaller with this new method, and the added mapping step has virtually no impact on the overall Simcenter STAR-CCM+ simulation time.
Whenever you are looking to couple a fluid solution in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ with a structural analysis in Simcenter 3D, you will benefit from significantly more efficient process and data transfer.
Improve the accuracy and speed of water management simulations
Many multiphase applications require precise yet efficient handling of droplets sliding across surfaces. Typical use cases include tracking raindrops sliding across the surfaces of moving vehicles, including car windshields, mirrors, and sensor surfaces. Although it is in principle possible to use the high-fidelity Volume of Fluid (VOF) method, it is very expensive and for large numbers of sliding drops, VOF simulation is computationally prohibitive. To predict the dynamics of these droplets on surfaces, a Lagrangian approach is very efficient, but it is of fundamental importance to take into account the effects of surface tension with high precision.
With Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310, we therefore introduce a new type of Lagrangian phase, so-called wall-bound droplets, and a new particle shape model called Spherical Cap Particles. The latter provides a more accurate prediction of particle drag and heat transfer. Droplets attached to the wall can also be absorbed into a fluid film to accurately model filament formation. A new adhesion force model allows capturing the typical adhesion and sliding motion for wall-attached droplets using the concept of contact angle hysteresis. This is of particular importance in applications such as cleaners.
The entire new modeling structure, with its first submodels, allows you to run simulations with accurate and fast tracking of drops and sliding flows. This results in greater accuracy and speed of water management simulations.
Accelerate multiphase EMP simulations with minimal loss of accuracy
Acceleration of large-scale Eulerian multiphase simulations (EMP-LSI) via implicit multisteps. Nuclear industry application where cooling water is introduced, leading to a countercurrent of displaced gas with slug flow. The acceleration is shown with an increasing number of substeps along with the flow field at the end of the simulation.
Multiphase simulations are often computationally expensive or not sufficiently accurate. While smart hybrid multiphase solutions offer the ability to apply the most effective approach in each state of the multiphase, all respective submodels need to perform at their best to achieve maximum throughput.
For this reason, in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310, we have added several implicit steps for Eulerian Multiphase (EMP) targeting large-scale interface (LSI) simulations, mirroring equivalent capacity previously added for VOF and MMP. This leads to more efficient EMP-LSI simulations, reducing simulation time for a given level of accuracy; or increasing accuracy for a given runtime (budget).
Significant reductions in execution time can be achieved by running N substeps within the flow time step and then increasing the flow time step by a factor N. This maintains the substep time scale associated with transporting the fraction of volume at the same level (CFL number), but because the computational cost of a substep is a small fraction of the cost of a full flow time step, there is a significant cost savings. Alternatively, this feature can be used to improve accuracy with a small additional computational cost by adding substeps for a given flow time step size.
Optimize cabin design through standardized passenger thermal comfort assessment in a fully integrated manner
Passenger thermal comfort is a significant factor in end customer satisfaction in any vehicle. While vehicles powered by internal combustion engines have made the work of HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) engineers and system energy management considerably easier thanks to the large amount of surplus heat, electric vehicles require much more diligent handling of the energy and heat, in exchange for comfort, safety and autonomy.
With Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310 , you can now optimize vehicle cabin design and HVAC systems through a fully integrated suite of industry-standard passenger thermal comfort assessment models. A new state-of-the-art thermoregulation model is now available to calculate the thermal response of the human body as a function of cabin conditions (radiation, convection). The model also takes into account physiological factors, such as the level of metabolic activity, and uses them to accurately calculate skin temperature across the body. These temperatures are then used to calculate the Dynamic Thermal Sensation (DTS) and Predicted Percent Dissatisfaction (PPD) global comfort indices, as well as the Equivalent Homogeneous Temperature (EHT) local comfort indices. These are widely recognized industry standard metrics that are crucial for evaluating passengers' overall perception of comfort through DTS and PPD, as well as locally for each major body part through EHT. All new models mentioned are fully integrated with the latest Simcenter STAR-CCM+ automation features .
This allows you to create leaner, more efficient end-to-end workflows for cabin design studies.
Simulate more applications on GPUs
The benefits of GPU-enabled CFD simulation acceleration are undoubtedly; Significantly lower simulation cost in the cloud, massive reduction in power consumption and replacement of hundreds of CPU cores with one GPU node. Over several release cycles, the excellent performance of Simcenter STAR-CCM+ on GPUs has been demonstrated. It is of fundamental importance to expand the ability to leverage GPUs for more models and, consequently, more applications.
With Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310 , we therefore continue porting solvers and resources to make them equally available for native GPU and CPU simulations. With this release, you can leverage a GPU-native coupled solid energy solver , a GPU implementation of the Equilibrium Air equation of state, and the Gamma-ReTheta transition model.
This means, for example, more efficient conjugate heat transfer, e.g. turbine blade cooling simulations, faster supersonic and hypersonic aerospace aerodynamics, and laminar-turbulent transition flows. Continuing our philosophy of a unified codebase for CPUs and GPUs, you can be confident that GPUs will provide CPU-equivalent streaming solutions.
Access virtually unlimited computing resources in your simulation environment
Running CFD simulations in the cloud offers greater flexibility and scalability on on-premises hardware, with on-demand access and unlimited capacity. However, configuring and accessing the cloud using third-party providers often requires significant time and expertise in cloud and HPC technologies and disrupts existing workflows.
Directly from Simcenter STAR-CCM+ , Simcenter Cloud HPC provides instant access to the optimized Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, configured and managed by Siemens, with no additional configuration required.
With the launch of the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310 , we are expanding the availability of Simcenter Cloud HPC from the Americas to Asia Pacific, with the service expected to launch in Europe, the Middle East and Africa soon.
For more information on how to access and try Simcenter Cloud HPC for free, contact CAEXPERTS at the link at the end of this post.
Prepare large, complex geometries faster with Parallel Surface Wrapper
Meshing time is a critical factor for fast overall CFD simulation response time, especially for complex assemblies. The Surface Wrapper has proven to be a very powerful tool for automatically preparing watertight surfaces for subsequent surface re-wrapping and volume-wrapping. Until now, the surface wrapper has employed shared memory parallelism.
In Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310 , we are introducing the first phase of the distributed memory parallelized surface wrapper (MPI). In this first version, the pipeline from surface wrapping to gap closure has been parallelized.
Overall, the speedup of the new algorithm is up to 2.4 times. Compared to the legacy surface wrapper , there is a reduction of approximately up to 43% in wrapping time for various industrial cases. Although the new MPI surface wrapper yields consistent results across various core counts, it locally provides enhanced positioning of gap-closing faces for improved mesh quality and generally exhibits better adherence to user input, such as gap-closing size.
Create reduced order models (ROM) from CFD design exploration studies in just a few clicks
Reduced-order models represent great opportunities to quickly explore the design space and create fast-running models for real-time feedback. However, to obtain valid conclusions, such models need to be provided with sufficient, validated and – without derogation – well-organized data. Compiling these training and validation datasets from CFD results to create the Reduced Order Model (ROM) can be a tedious and error-prone process if the interface for data transfer is not handled properly.
With the release of the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310 and the recently released Simcenter Reduced Order Modeling software, we enable the most seamless approach to go from scalar field screenshots of your steady-state CFD results directly to a static ROM. You can now export study data from Designer Manager with one click, ready to be used as a training and validation dataset in Simcenter Reduced Order Modeling. The current capability supports snapshots of scalar scenes with a fixed color scale from any type of design study. After export, Simcenter STAR-CCM+ creates a comprehensive package including all images from your snapshots. Simcenter 's reduced order modeling will then generate the ROM prediction using proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and report a ROM fidelity index. Although the data export feature can generally be used for any type of parameter, the POD method works best for moderate parameter variations when rotation effects are negligible and geometry movement is small enough.
Overall, the new ROM data export allows for rapid ROM construction from CFD simulation studies. You can now create fast-running models from CFD simulations with confidence and benefit from improved collaboration between CFD analysts and system designers thanks to immediate previews of scenario variants via ROMs. Included in Design Manager, exporting CFD data does not require a license. For subsequent ROM generation, a Simcenter Reduced Order Modeling license is required.
Explore and share engineering results in your browser
Launching in early 2022, Simcenter STAR-CCM+ Web Viewer allows you to easily explore and share your engineering results directly from your browser. This powerful tool offers fast, interactive data analysis capabilities for free and from virtually any device with no installation effort, ultimately improving the communication of CFD results. However, when working with a scene file in Simcenter STAR-CCM+ Web Viewer, you need to be able to work as autonomously as possible without needing to go back to Simcenter STAR-CCM+ .
So in version 2310, we're taking a big leap in that direction with the Simulation Framework feature. By providing the ability to freely hide and show objects across multiple view layers, it is easy to understand how a scene is configured and better understand the source simulation configuration.
Frequent users of Simcenter STAR-CCM+ will immediately identify the similarities with displayers and their desktop client hide and show concepts. Users new to Simcenter STAR-CCM+ , on the other hand, become familiar with the different visualization layers through easy-to-understand nomenclature.
The degree of control over visibility is very granular, ranging from high-level control of the display down to the surfaces of individual parts. This gives you unrestricted control over what should be shown and what should be hidden.
Quickly automate sophisticated simulation workflows with Stages and the Automation node
To model the complexity of today's products and simulate them under real-world conditions, you need to implement sophisticated multiphysics CFD simulation workflows. Traditionally, this task requires the use of scripts or the complicated and error-prone transfer of data from one simulation model to another.
Simcenter STAR-CCM+ is designed around a simplified CAD-to-results pipeline, providing fully integrated native automation capabilities. Building on this foundation, the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310 further extends simulation automation intelligence with Stages. Stages allow you to handle multiple physical configurations in a single simulation, reducing the need for scripts. With a single click, you can prepare different physical models, conditions – such as interface or boundary conditions and other settings. A staged object can have different settings for each stage. Objects that are not staged will maintain the same values at all stages.
Applications that immediately benefit from Stages are vehicle thermal absorption, the recently released battery cell design model, and more. Combined with Simulation Operations, this enables fast and consistent management of complicated simulation sequences. You can now manage complete stages of simulation configurations and orchestrate their execution without manual intervention or Java macros, and share these workflows with your colleagues in a single simulation file.
To further increase your productivity, we are introducing a new node in the simulation tree: the Automation node. You will now benefit from one location in the simulation tree that contains all automation aspects of the simulation workflow. This allows you to generate automated workflows faster and increases the discoverability of already defined simulation workflows with better node organization and less clutter.
Together, Stages and the automation node take the concept of an intelligent simulation file, enabling end-to-end automation, from CAD to results, to the next level. Enabling you to explore more projects and solve complex multi-physics problems faster.
These are just a few highlights of the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310 . These capabilities will enable you to design better products faster than ever before, turning today's engineering complexity into a competitive advantage. In short, the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ 2310 represents a significant leap in computational simulation capability, providing notable advances in battery cell modeling, thermal simulations, aerovibroacoustic simulations, and more. With features like Simcenter Cloud HPC, parallelized Surface Wrapper, and workflow automation, we give engineers powerful tools to accelerate product development and explore new frontiers of innovation.
If your company seeks to stand out at the forefront of engineering, the specialized team at CAEXPERTS is ready to collaborate, applying these advanced solutions in simulation and engineering.
Schedule a meeting with us to boost your competitiveness and transform challenges into opportunities.