# Simcenter STAR-CCM+

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ is a commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based simulation software developed by Siemens Digital Industries Software. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ allows the modeling and analysis of a range of engineering problems involving fluid flow, heat transfer, stress, particulate flow, electromagnetics and related phenomena.
Formerly known as STAR-CCM+, the software was first developed by CD-adapco and was acquired by Siemens Digital Industries Software as part of the purchase of CD-adapco in 2016. It is now a part of the Simcenter Portfolio of software tools.

## History

Development work on STAR-CCM+ was started after a decision was taken to design a new, integrated CFD tool to replace the existing product STAR-CD which had been developed during the 1980s and 1990s by Computational Dynamics Ltd, a spin-off company from an Imperial College London CFD research group. STAR-CD was widely used most notably in the automotive industry. STAR-CCM+ aimed to take advantage of more modern programming methods and to provide an expandable framework.
STAR-CCM+ was announced at the 2004 AIAA Aerospace Sciences Conference in Reno, Nevada. A unique feature was a generalized polyhedral cell formulation, allowing the solver to handle any mesh type imported. The first official release included the first commercially available polyhedral mesher, offering faster model convergence compared to an equivalent tetrahedral mesh.

## Development

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ is developed according to a continual improvement process, with a new version released every four months. The program uses a client-server architecture, implemented using object-oriented programming.

## Capabilities

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ is primarily Computational fluid dynamics software which uses the Finite element analysis or Finite volume method to calculate the transport of physical quantities on a discretized mesh. For fluid flow the Navier–Stokes equations are solved in each of the cells. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ has multiphysics capabilities including:
* Fluid flow through porous media
* Multiphase flow
** Discrete element method
** Volume of fluid method
* Non-Newtonian fluid
* Rheology
* Turbulence
* Viscoelasticity

## Release history

| Version | Release Date |
| 1.04 | October 2004 |
| 1.06 | December 2004 |
| 1.08 | January 2005 |
| 2.02 | November 2005 |
| 2.04 | October 2006 |
| 2.06 | February 2007 |
| 3.02 | March 2008 |
| 3.04 | July 2008 |
| 3.06 | November 2008 |
| 4.02 | March 2009 |
| 4.04 | July 2009 |
| 4.06 | November 2009 |
| 5.02 | February 2010 |
| 5.04 | June 2010 |
| 5.06 | October 2010 |
| 6.02 | March 2011 |
| 6.04 | July 2011 |
| 6.06 | October 2011 |
| 7.02 | March 2012 |
| 7.04 | June 2012 |
| 7.06 | November 2012 |
| 8.02 | March 2013 |
| 8.04 | June 2013 |
| 8.06 | October 2013 |
| 9.02 | February 2014 |
| 9.04 | June 2014 |
| 9.06 | October 2014 |
| 10.02 | February 2015 |
| 10.04 | June 2015 |
| 10.06 | October 2015 |
| 11.02 | February 2016 |
| 11.04 | June 2016 |
| 11.06 | October 2016 |
| 12.02 | February 2017 |
| 12.04 | June 2017 |
| 12.06 | October 2017 |
| 13.02 | February 2018 |
| 13.04 | June 2018 |
| 13.06 | October 2018 |
| 2019.1 | February 2019 |
| 2019.2 | June 2019 |
| 2019.3 | October 2019 |
| 2020.1 | February 2020 |
| 2020.2 | June 2020 |
| 2020.3 | October 2020 |
| 2021.1 | February 2021 |
| 2021.2 | June 2021 |
| 2021.3 | October 2021 |
| 2022.1 | February 2022 |
| 2206 | June 2022 |
| 2210 | October 2022 |
| 2302 | February 2023 |
| 2306 | June 2023 |
| 2310 | October 2023 |
| 2402 | February 2024 |
| 2410 | October 2024 |
| 2502 | February 2025 |

## Usage

Prior to CD-adapco's acquisition by Siemens, the customer base was approximately 3,200 accounts with 52% of licence sales attributed to the automotive industry.