Spread out – distribute your co-simulations, co-simulating LMS Amesim with STAR-CCM+ to analyze a servovalve

Realize innovation.Unrestricted © Siemens AG 2017
Spread out – distribute your
co-simulations
Co-simulating LMS Amesim with STAR-CCM+
to analyze a servovalve LMS Imagine.Lab Amesim™
A world leading platform for physical
simulation of mechatronic systems

Siemens PLM Software
Unrestricted © Siemens AG 2017
Page 2 Siemens PLM Software
Table of contents
• Introduction to the product portfolio
• Motivation for this co-simulation study
• Setup of the 1D LMS Amesim model
• Setup of the 3D STAR-CCM+ model
• Results of the LMS Amesim/STAR-CCM+ co-simulation
• Going further

Simcenter™ Portfolio for Predictive Engineering Analytics
LMS Imagine.Lab
LMS Imagine.Lab Amesim
LMS
Imagine.Lab
System
Synthesis
LMS
Imagine.Lab
Sysdm

STAR-CCM+
STAR-CCM+

Cloud
Licensing
flexibility
Cornerstones for a future-proof engineering approach
Covering full range of
methods
Analytics, reporting &
exploration
Deployment flexibility
Openness &
Scalability
User experience
Industry &
engineering expertise
Systems approach
Collaboration &
workflow
Multidiscipline
& multiphysics
R
F
L
P
Controls
1D
3D
TEST
CFD

Table of contents
• Motivations for this co-simulation study
• Going further

Presentation of the electro-hydraulic servovalve
• This study demonstrates the possibility to solve
dynamic complex hydraulic problems with 3D CFD
detailed flapper valve representation
• LMS Amesim/STAR-CCM+ co-simulation to model the
behavior of such complex systems with overset mesh
• Better prediction of the pressure gradient depending on
the flapper lift, so the force balance is more accurate
• The 1D model of the servovalve without co-simulation is
available in LMS Amesim.
STAR-CCM+ has a dedicated user interface to connect to LMS Imagine.Lab Amesim
that makes the co-simulation process easy to set-up.
Servovalve (MOOG illustration)
Motivations

3D CFD flappers in co-simulation with the 1D servolvalve model
Two 3D CFD flapper valves with a complete LMS Amesim model
• Calculates the flow rate from the pressure
boundary conditions and position of the
flappers
• Integrates the pressure gradient on the flapper
to estimate the hydrodynamic force
• Represents the entire servovalve
• Includes a magnetic torque motor acting on a
mechanical armature
• Controls a spool valve thanks to a hydraulic
circuit
• Provides the boundary conditions of the valves
and the displacement of the two flappers
LMS Amesim
STAR-CCM+
LMS Amesim

Table of contents
• Going further

Operating principles of the nozzle-flapper type servo-valve
• This servovalve is an electronically operated 2-stage
device. It’s typically used in the aerospace and automotive
industries
• These valves are primarily used for closed loop control of
position, force and velocity. They offer high performance for
amplification and response time
• These valves consist of two stages:
• the 1st stage has a magnetic torque motor and is of
flapper/nozzle type design
• the 2nd stage has a precision ground 4-way control spool
and a feedback system which may be either mechanical
or electrical
Servovalve (MOOG illustration)

Ready-to-use template demo in LMS Amesim
A ready-to-use model is available in LMS Amesim to:
• analyze the system step response
• compute the leakage of the valve second stage
• compute the valve pressure characteristic at zero flow
• identify the eigenvalue of the flexure tube
Complete model of a flow control servovalve Step responses for various signal inputs (% of rated current)
LMS Amesim

Next step is to get more details for the flapper nozzles
LMS Amesim
LMS Amesim
LMS Amesim
STAR-CCM+
STAR-CCM+
The two flapper nozzles considered in 1D will be
converted into two CFD 3D STAR-CCM+ models
+

Table of contents
• Going further

Meshing of the 3D STAR-CCM+ model domain
• The volume meshes are generated by the
Automatic 3D polyhedral mesher
• Two meshes are created:
• One mesh which covers the entire domain
• Another mesh surrounds the flapper, and
translates according to the flapper motion
• Overset mesh technology in STAR-CCM+
interpolates both meshes together to create a
single computational mesh of the fluid domain
• The overset interpolation is executed with each
time step, and allows extreme motions of the
flapper to be modelled in STAR-CCM+ Resulting Overset meshes near end stop
Moving mesh around flapper shown in purple
Stationary background mesh shown in green
Moving mesh is updated
during simulation

Setup of the co-simulation in LMS Amesim
Method
The benefit of this simulation consists in modeling two flapper valves in CFD at the same time. It can be done
in two different simulations, that are run on different machines.
Here one of them is run locally and the other on a Linux machine on the network.
Each flapper valve is modeled in a super-component.
Each super-component is composed of the model and a TCP/IP communication block with a unique
communication port.
Supercomponent #1 Supercomponent #2

Table of contents
• Going further

Multiple STAR-CCM+ simulations coupled to one LMS Amesim
model
Distant STAR-CCM+
simulation on a
Linux machine on
the network
Local STAR-CCM+
simulation on the
local computer
LMS Amesim run locally on the local
computer
Strategy used to couple the multiple simulations
LMS Amesim




Run and results of the LMS Amesim / STAR-CCM+ co-simulation
• A positive current signal step is used to control the
torque motor
• The torque motor acts on the flexure tube of the
armature to control the displacement of the
flappers
• The forces generated by the end-stops are
computed in LMS Amesim
• The output flow rate reaches the set point
value defined by the input command
• Valve dynamics is fast w.r.t the large flow rate
Output flow rateDisplacement of the two flappers
Results in LMS Amesim

Run and results of the LMS Amesim / STAR-CCM+ co-simulation
Simulation aspects
• Simultaneous simulations of the two flapper valves
running in parallel, coupled with a unique detailed
LMS Amesim model
• The model requires a small time-step for the solver
when the valve is almost closed
• Co-simulation adds information about the pressure
gradient and the fluid velocity in the two flapper
valves
Results in STAR-CCM+
Pressure
Velocity

Table of contents
• Going further

STAR-CCM+ / LMS Amesim co-simulation user guide in LMS
Amehelp

Co-simulation: LMS Amesim (local Windows), STAR-CCM+
(clustered Linux)
HPC
CO-SIMULATION
1D or 3D CFD
simulation
Engineer
1D outputs as inputs into 3D CFD
3D CFD outputs as inputs into 1D
LMS Amesim is set-up on a local Windows PC,
and STAR-CCM+ is configured on a Linux cluster
High Performance
Computing (HPC)
LMS Amesim

System Driven Product Development
Enabling Verification and Validation in the Age of System Engineering
SYSTEMS DRIVEN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
PREDICTIVE ENGINEERING ANALYTICSSYSTEM MOCK-UP
MULTI-DOMAIN TRACEABILITY, CHANGE AND CONFIGURATION
3D TEST
ANALYTICS - REPORTING
Digital
twin
VERIFICATION & VALIDATION
1D VIACFD

3D SIMULATION
CFD SIMULATION
1D SIMULATION
From disconnected models and data …
Customer Usage data
Simulation data
Test data TEST MODELING
Historical data
CONTROLS

…to a performance Digital Twin
3D SIMULATION
CFD SIMULATION
1D SIMULATION
Customer Usage data
Simulation data
Test data
CONTROLS
TEST MODELING
Historical data

Contact
Karim NASSAR & Stéphane NEYRAT | LMS Amesim Platform
Joe OSMAN | STAR-CCM+
Siemens Industry Software S.A.S.
Digital Factory Division
Product Lifecycle Management
Simulation & Test Solutions
DF PL STS CAE 1D | CD-adapco
siemens.com

Spread out – distribute your co-simulations, co-simulating LMS Amesim with STAR-CCM+ to analyze a servovalve

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