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The primary new feature of the pending 2.02 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 as needed to achieve a high quality CFD result.

For this release, previous meshing technology in ammbatch was completely rewritten from the ground up. The goals of the rewrites included:

* Improvements in CPU and memory use over ammbatch meshers

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

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

o Poly mesher: ~3x faster

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

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

* Improvements in mesh quality

o Surface wrapper: Much better retention of features

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

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

o Trimmer: High fidelity to surface details

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

* Improvements in mesh robustness

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

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

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

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

* Improvements in coordination between meshers

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

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

At this point, this meshing release cannot yet be considered a replacement for pro-am. There are many powerful features in pro-am (manipulating meshes, set manipulation, etc.) that have not been migrated into STAR-CCM+. 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+. The two places where this is possible are:

* Modifying (fixing, improving, etc.) a surface mesh generated in STAR-CCM+:

o Export any surface mesh from STAR-CCM+ into .dbs format.

o Read the .dbs file into pro-am, modify it as needed, then re-export.

o Reimport the modified (or new) .dbs file into STAR-CCM+.

* Modifying (fixing, improving, etc.) a volume mesh generated in STAR-CCM+:

o Export a generated volume mesh using the .ccm format.

o Read the .ccm file into pro-am, modify and re-export.

o Read the modified .ccm file back into STAR-CCM+.

Physics:

* Surface-to-surface radiation

* Discrete ordinate radiation

* Heat exchanger (radiator) Method 1

* Transition model (laminar to turbulent)

* Volume of fuid (VOF)

* Multi-species (active scalars)

* Eddy-breakup combustion