STAR Global Confrence 2016
Article by: Edwin C. López Ramos
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Puerto Rico: Mayagüez Campus
Figure 1: (Left to Right) Dr. Barbara Calcagno, Carlos Sosa, Edwin Lopez, Eli Gonzalez, Francesco Forina and Dr. Gustavo Gutierrez
[su_dropcap style=”default” size=”5″]P[/su_dropcap]rague is a historic and aristocrat city within the Czech Republic that’s filled with beautiful monuments of Eastern European history. This city was the venue of Cd-Adapco’s STAR Global Conference 2016 and I attended as part of the team that won the conferences’ simcontest. Once at the venue, I had the opportunity to exchange thoughts with students and professionals alike under the topic of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Also, I had the opportunity to attend a hands on Meshing Workshop and other lecture type expositions. Between coffee breakes I observed and spoke with some representatives of companies that had booths at the conference. The overall experience at the conference was beneficial due to the acquired insight in new simulation methods, techniques and technologies that have broadened my understanding of simulation software.
During the conference, many presentations were given by independent researchers and companies where I had learned new ways to incorporate our reality to the simulations. These presentations focused on which methods were optimal for each analysis whether it be turbulence, aerodynamics, cavitation, multiphase flow, etc… Also, these talks introduced me to more numerical models that are available for general and case-specific applications. A simple example for the above statement can be applied to cavitation simulations. One can predict cavitation in a system by generating and analyzing the pressure distribution in a scalar scene with only applying steady state or turbulent models. On the other hand, a cavitation model can be implemented to study the effect that cavitation bubbles have on future bubble formation. As a result, the presentations and conversations with these “experts” gave me a better idea of the tools at my disposal when adjusting my simulation.
The most comprehensive and useful part of the conference was the hands on “Meshing Best Practices” workshop. In this workshop, I learned and implemented new and unknown features that STAR CCM+ has to offer. Some of these were: Local volume mesh, local surface mesh, part exchange, mesh aspect ratios for prism layers and directed meshing with interfaces. The local meshing applications are (in my opinion) one of the most powerful tools the software has to offer. One can mesh the geometry with a satisfactory coarse mesh and then create a volumetric control over the surface or volume of interest. By doing so, the meshing time can be halved because the only properties that are remeshed are the surface or volume of interest. Furthermore, the surface of interest can be swapped with another surface, thus facilitating parametric changes of CAD designs. Finally, this experience at the conference has facilitated me with the skills and understanding needed to prepare accurate simulations for future projects.