I have a relatively simple geometry of a square cross-section pipe with a thin solid material boundary (to simulate H1 thermal boundary condition) and am trying to find a way to produce a more optimal mesh.

The geometry is square in the XY plane and extends in the Z direction. Is there any way to specify or change the number of cells or stretch the cells in the Z direction to make the number of cells smaller when running longer pipes? For example, I know that in GAMBIT, it is possible to specify how many cells to produce along a dimension. Is something similar available within STAR-CCM?

Also, if anyone has a better way to simulate the H1(constant axial heat flux with constant peripheral wall temperature) thermal boundary condition in STAR-CCM that would be very helpful as well. I am currently specifying a thin, highly conductive solid material surrounding the pipe fluid that is subjected to a constant heat flux. Due to the high thermal conductivity of the material, the peripheral wall temperature is approximately constant.

Hi
my suggestion to stretch the cell in the z direction is to use the "Volumetric Control" that you can find under the mesh menu. Simply define a volume shape under the Tools -> Volume Shape menu, you can define a volume that include your pipe, the use that volume in the volumetric control. There you can set an anisotropic custom mesh in the trimmer option, then specify a cell size in the z direction to have less cells in the pipe...
Hope that help!
Bye
Andrea

Just use the extruder.

Is this not a 2D problem? If so, use mesh>convert to 2D. Make sure the mesh is oriented such that the pipe length is down the z-axis, and the square cross-section lies in the x-y plane. Also keep in mind that this models a 1-meter depth (even if inches are the default unit).