Meshing Overview

The primary new feature of this release of STAR-CCM+ is the integration of next-generation meshing tools into the existing STAR-CCM+ product. The goal of this integration is to shift your starting point upstream. Rather than requiring you to import a volume mesh generated outside STAR-CCM+ (in pro-am or a 3rd party tool), you can now import a surface mesh and proceed through the Volume Meshing > Solution > Analysis procedure without ever leaving STAR-CCM+. In addition to streamlining your overall process and allowing you to master just a single tool, this release provides a much more flexible product where you can easily iterate between meshing and solution to achieve a high quality CFD result.

The integrated meshing in STAR-CCM+ is based in the ammbatch technology, but re-implemented from the ground up to give the following benefits over ammbatch meshers:

Improvements in CPU and memory use:

Surface wrapper: ~6x faster, ~3x memory reduction

Tet mesher: ~3x faster, ~4x memory reduction

Poly mesher: ~3x faster

Trimmer: ~3-4x faster, ~2x memory reduction

Prism meshing (subsurface + extrusion): ~10x faster, ~2x memory reduction

Improvements in mesh quality:

Surface wrapper: Much better retention of features

Surface remesher: Accurately coarsens/refines surface meshes while maintaining original geometry

Poly mesher: Uses solver-based validity metrics to optimize mesh

Trimmer: High fidelity to surface details

Prism meshing: Quality metrics built into subsurface process to guarantee high quality subsurface

Improvements in mesh robustness:

Surface wrapper: 100% guarantee of a closed, manifold surface after wrapping

Poly mesher: Post processing codes to eliminate negative volume or invalid cells

Trimmer: 100% guarantee of zero "unresolved cells" or CP errors

Prism meshing: Post processing of extrusion cells to eliminate negative volumes

Improvements in coordination between meshers:

New embedded "pipeline" takes the mesh through the various meshers without relying on disk I/O

Pipeline model gives the user the ability to generate a high quality mesh with just one click

This meshing release cannot yet be considered a replacement for pro-am, however. There are many powerful features in pro-am (manipulating meshes, set manipulation, etc.) that have not been migrated into STAR-CCM+ yet. In cases where you really need a fine tuned control over your meshing process, you must still rely on pro-am. For many cases, though, where you want to import a surface, set some meshing options, and generate a mesh without extensive interaction, the STAR-CCM+ meshing functionality is the ideal choice.

Unlike STAR-Design and the other STAR-CAD products that give you "one click" meshing but minimal control, STAR-CCM+ 2.02 will expose many more options in the meshers while still preserving the "one click" idea. In addition, there are defined exit/entry points in STAR-CCM+ that allow you to get your model into pro-am, tweak it, and get it back into STAR-CCM+.