Reporting, Monitoring and Plotting

STAR-CCM+ can dynamically monitor virtually any quantity while the solution develops. The process involves setting up a report which defines the quantity of interest and the region parts that will be monitored. A monitor is then defined based on the report, which controls the update frequency and normalization characteristics. Finally, a graph plot can then be created from the monitor.

A report will be used in this case to monitor the irradiation at one of the interfaces between the glass panels and surrounding air. This process starts with the report definition.

In the object tree, right-click the Reports node and select New Report > Area Averaged.

This will create a new node called Area Averaged 1 within the Reports node.

Right-click the Area Averaged 1 node and select Rename from the pop-up menu.

Rename the report to Irradiation1.

Select the Irradiation1 node and click the right half of the Parts property and in the Select Objects dialog that appears select Fluid:bottom-solid1 [In-place 2].

The reason for selecting the Fluid:bottom-solid1 [In-place 2] boundary instead of the Fluid:bottom-solid1 boundary is that after initialization, the in-place interface conditions will supersede those of the original wall boundary. Therefore, any values you wish to extract from boundaries on region interfaces should always be from the in-place boundary interfaces.

In the Properties window select Boundary Irradiation as the Scalar function.

The setup for the report is now complete, and a monitor and plot can be made from that report.

Right-click the Irradiation1 node and select Create Monitor from Report in the pop-up menu.

This will create a new node called Irradiation1 Monitor within the Monitors node.

With the new node selected, the default settings for the Irradiation1 Monitor can be seen in the Properties window.

These settings will be used to update the plot at every iteration while the solution is running.

Right-click the Irradiation1 Monitor node and select Create Plot from Monitor.

This will create the Irradiation1 Monitor Plot node under the Plots node.

With that new node selected, you can view the property settings for the plot in the Properties window.

Additional settings for the monitor plot can be adjusted via the subnodes of the Irradiation1 Monitor Plot node.

To preview the plot display, double-click the Irradiation1 Monitor Plot node, or right-click it and select Open from the pop-up menu.

A new plot display called Irradiation1 Monitor Plot will appear in the Graphics window.

This display will be automatically updated with boundary irradiation data when the run starts.

Create three more reports in the same way as described above.

A report of area-averaged Boundary Heat Flux on the Fluid:top part named HeatFlux1.

A report of maximum Temperature on the Fluid part named MaxTempFluid1.

A report of maximum Temperature on the Solid part named MaxTempSolid1.

Select the MaxTempSolid1 and MaxTempFluid1 nodes within Reports. Right-click and select Create Monitor and Plot from Report from the pop-up menu.

In the confirmation dialog that appears select Single Plot.

Two new monitors are created and one new plot called Reports Plot appears in the Plots node.

To preview the plot display, double-click the Reports Plot node, or right-click it and select Open from the pop-up menu.

Note that for reports and scalar scenes, no radiation data, i.e. irradiation and radiosity, is available on the solid side of a fluid-solid interface. This means that no data is available for reporting, monitoring, plotting or visualizing on Solid:top-solid1[In-place1], Solid:bottom-solid1[In-place2], Solid:top-solid2[In-place3] or Solid:bottom-solid2[In-place4].