{"id":11901,"date":"2020-03-23T05:20:05","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T09:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/?p=11901"},"modified":"2026-03-26T06:50:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:50:01","slug":"15-years-of-using-simcenter-star-ccm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/15-years-of-using-simcenter-star-ccm\/","title":{"rendered":"All grown up! 15 Years of using Simcenter STAR-CCM+"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A postdoc walks into a <s>bar<\/s> office<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A little over 15 years ago, a fresh faced young post-doc walked into the Hammersmith office of CD-adapco&nbsp;for a job interview. Along with the usual discussions on his&nbsp;experience and suitability,&nbsp;he was&nbsp;given a test to judge&nbsp;how&nbsp;readily he could pick up new software and learn on the fly. The software in question was a new&nbsp;code called STAR-CCM+, Version 1.02 to be exact.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In case you&nbsp;hadn\u2019t guessed the&nbsp;post-doc in question&nbsp;was yours truly and,  having&nbsp;done&nbsp;my&nbsp;PhD using STAR-CD,&nbsp;STAR-CCM+&nbsp;came as&nbsp;a bit of a shock. You couldn\u2019t manipulate cells and vertices directly and there was no command line! Probably&nbsp;most surprising was that&nbsp;you didn\u2019t need to write pages of Fortran to get things done.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Confusing as it seemed,&nbsp;STAR-CCM+&nbsp;was also exciting, the&nbsp;interface was easy to use, and the post-processing was great. Probably the most amazing feature, however, was seeing flowfield&nbsp;develop as the solver ran and changing settings on the fly. In a time of tailing log files to understand solution progress it felt like a brave new world.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"575\" height=\"620\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/Dynamics2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11956\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/Dynamics2.png 575w, https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/Dynamics2-556x600.png 556w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 575px) 100vw, 575px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The release announcement for CD adapco group&#8217;s new CFD code<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>Back in 2005&nbsp;it&nbsp;was&nbsp;a pretty basic code, single phase only, no meshing,&nbsp;and&nbsp;limited post processing. Since then, the&nbsp;three major releases per year have enabled the&nbsp;software to&nbsp;develop at an&nbsp;phenomenal&nbsp;rate. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ really can lay claim to being the most&nbsp;capable and powerful CFD solution on the market today.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"347\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/then_now-1024x347.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11907\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/then_now-1024x347.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/then_now-600x203.png 600w, https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/then_now-768x260.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/then_now-1536x521.png 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/then_now-2048x694.png 2048w, https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/then_now-1110x376.png 1110w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Simcenter STAR-CCM+ version 1 on the left, FSI 2020.1 on the right. I think its fair to say it&#8217;s come a long way on a short space of time!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Our new webinar series<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>So why am I reminiscing about my 15 years of using Simceneter STAR-CCM+? Well you&#8217;ve probably read some of the <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/tag\/simcenter-star-ccm\/\">blogs <\/a>that detail the developments in every new release. While it is always great to talk about exciting new capabilities, we felt it was time to take a step back and look at what makes Simcenter STAR-CCM+ the powerful solution it is today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the next few months we will be holding a series of webinars to&nbsp;highlight different aspects of&nbsp;Simcenter&nbsp;STAR-CCM+&nbsp;and how it&nbsp;can help you bring new and innovative&nbsp;products to market&nbsp;as well as highlighting&nbsp;some&nbsp;amazing things our customers are doing with it.&nbsp;All Webinars will be available on-demand after the live event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.plm.automation.siemens.com\/global\/en\/webinar\/enabling-simulation-driven-design-simcenter-star-ccm\/70205\" target=\"_blank\">kicked things off<\/a>&nbsp;by talking about some of the technologies introduced over the years that make&nbsp;Simcenter&nbsp;STAR-CCM+ what it is today.&nbsp;From there we will look at how you can easily go from running a single design point&nbsp;to hundreds and improve your products through design exploration in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www-preview.plm.automation.siemens.com\/global\/en\/webinar\/multiphysics-cfd-analysis\/71782\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;One to Many&#8221;&nbsp;webinar<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p><!--StartFragment--><\/p>\n\n\n<p> On-demand Webinars: <\/p>\n\n\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video controls src=\"https:\/\/videos.mentor-cdn.com\/mgc\/videos\/5400\/f8d9666a-1024-4d02-a4d4-7b3e6e5dd333-en-US-video.mp4\"><\/video><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Design exploration has become an critical part of Simcenter STAR-CCM+ today<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Next up, we&nbsp;will&nbsp;focus&nbsp;on&nbsp;how Simcenter STAR-CCM+ enables the building of &nbsp;high-fidelity&nbsp;digital twins. We will demonstrate how&nbsp;you can incorporate&nbsp;more physics and geometric detail than ever before, enabling simulation of truly realistic representations of your products.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course,&nbsp;it is fine to talk about running multiple design points and realistic physics, but unless you can get meaningful results quickly, it can be of little value . That is why our final webinar will&nbsp;look at how&nbsp;Simcenter&nbsp;STAR-CCM+ allows you to complete simulations and make informed engineering decisions in hours, not weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video controls src=\"https:\/\/videos.mentor-cdn.com\/mgc\/videos\/5400\/96247e9c-727c-42f2-9d74-52575cc0017e-en-US-video.mp4\"><\/video><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Developments such as adaptive mesh refinement are driving down simulation time without sacrificing physical realism<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Older, maybe wiser, still excited about<br>Simcenter STAR-CCM+<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Simcenter STAR-CCM+ has come an awful long way in those 15 years since I started at CD-adapco. Every new release continues to deliver hundreds of new and innovative features and there is a lot more on the way.  I\u2019m continually amazed to see how&nbsp;it keeps getting better and how our users apply it in ways we never dreamt of.&nbsp;   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These days the face may not be so fresh, and I can\u2019t&nbsp;really&nbsp;be accused of being&nbsp;that&nbsp;young any more, but I still find using Simcenter STAR-CCM+ as exciting as the first time I laid eyes on it. So please join me for the&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.plm.automation.siemens.com\/global\/en\/webinar\/enabling-simulation-driven-design-simcenter-star-ccm\/70205\" target=\"_blank\">first of the series of four webinars<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;see how&nbsp;Simcenter&nbsp;STAR-CCM+ is redefining the art of the possible in CFD simulation.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n\n\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.g2.com\/products\/simcenter-star-ccm\/reviews?utm_source=review-widget\" title=\"Read reviews of Simcenter STAR-CCM+ on G2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"full-width\" style=\"max-width: 200px\" alt=\"Read Simcenter STAR-CCM+ reviews on G2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.g2.com\/products\/simcenter-star-ccm\/widgets\/stars?color=gray&amp;type=read\" \/><\/a><script>(function(a,b,c,d){window.fetch(\"https:\/\/www.g2.com\/products\/simcenter-star-ccm\/rating_schema.json\").then(e=>e.json()).then(f=>{c=a.createElement(b);c.type=\"application\/ld+json\";c.text=JSON.stringify(f);d=a.getElementsByTagName(b)[0];d.parentNode.insertBefore(c,d);});})(document,\"script\");<\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Simcenter STAR-CCM+ has come an awful long way in those 15 years since I started at CD-adapco<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61962,"featured_media":11960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[242,244],"industry":[],"product":[513],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-11901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-computational-fluid-dynamics-cfd","tag-design-exploration","product-simcenter-star-ccm"],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/03\/then_now.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61962"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11901"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70447,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11901\/revisions\/70447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11901"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=11901"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=11901"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/simcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}