a Package for Computational Fluid Dynamics SimulationsBelow you find explanations to obtain and check out product licenses and regarding support and training.

Functionality

STAR-CCM+ is a powerful finite-volume-based program package for modelling of fluid flow problems. The name STAR stands for "Simulation of Turbulent flow in Arbitrary Regions". It is maintained/developed by Siemens PLM Software (formerly CD-adapco Group). The STAR-CCM+ package can be applied to a wide range of problems such as

Aerospace Engineering
Turbomachinery
Chemical Process Engineering
Automotive Engineering
Building and Environment Engineering

Conditions for Usage and Licensing

To use STAR-CCM+ you need to mail support@nhr.zib.de and ask to become a member of the UNIX group adapco.

We provide free Power On Demand (POD) keys for teaching and academic research for non-industry funded projects.
Write us if you fulfil these conditions and state the number of needed hours (The core/node count does not matter.).

You can check your group membership by calling groups.
In order to run STAR-CCM+ you have to specify the parameters -licpath and -podkey, as shown in the example script below.

Introduction and courses

A product overview is provided here. This documentation describes only the specifics of installation and usage of STAR-CCM+. Introductory courses for STAR-CCM+ as well as courses for special topics are offered by Siemens PLM. It is recommended to take at least an introductory course (please contact Siemens PLM Software). As student you can join the Siemens Xcelerator Academy for Academics - for free.

Documentation and materials

STAR-CCM+ products come with complete documentation. The User Guide is available in PDF format, see directory /sw/eng/starccm/<version>/STAR-CCM+<version>/doc.

Installed versions

To see available versions type:

module avail starccm

All versions use double precision. The recommended default module - providing all necessary environment settings - can be loaded with: module load starccm

Example Jobscripts

This is an example for a parallel job

#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH -t 00:10:00
#SBATCH --nodes=2
#SBATCH --partition cpu-genoa:all
#SBATCH --ntasks-per-node=192
#SBATCH --job-name=StarCCM
#SBATCH --mail-type=ALL

module load starccm

## create the host list for starccm+
srun hostname -s | sort | uniq -c | awk '{ print $2":"$1 }' > starhosts.${SLURM_JOB_ID}

export CDLMD_LICENSE_FILE=1999@flex.cd-adapco.com
export PODKEY=<type your podkey here - we can provide one for you - under the above mentioned terms>
export MYCASE=<type your sim file name>

## run starccm+
starccm+ -np ${SLURM_NTASKS} -batch ${MYCASE} \
 -power -podkey ${PODKEY} -licpath ${CDLMD_LICENSE_FILE} \
 -machinefile starhosts.${SLURM_JOB_ID} 

echo '#################### StarCCM+ finished ############'
rm starhosts.$SLURM_JOB_ID

Known Issues

To check if the license server of CD-adapco is accessible type:

telnet flex.cd-adapco.com 1999

This test (Trying ...) is positiv if the server answers (within a second):
Escape character is '^]'
Typically, after some minutes, a negative test outcome is indicated by:
telnet ... Connection timed out

Tutorial Cases for STAR-CCM+

Tutorial case files can be found in /sw/eng/starccm/<version>/STAR-CCM+<version>/doc/startutorialsdata resp. (with solutions) in /sw/eng/starccm/<version>/STAR-CCM+<version>/tutorials, verification data in /sw/eng/starccm/<version>/STAR-CCM+<version>/VerificationData.