Connecting two imported geometries with a smooth mesh

Hello,

I am facing a (probably easy) issue trying to replicate a real life experiment,

The setup I have is a plastic part ('Insert') which is enclosed all around by an adhesive ('Epoxy') and pulled out by a force. I am interested in the shear force between my two parts to predict adhesive failure. The adhesive is supposed to be fully constrained on all outer surfaces (no failure ever seen there).

To represent this setup in Hypermesh I have designed both parts in CAD and imported as .iges files in two seperate components. Obviously they will have two different material properties. I use a linear material both for the platic and the adhesive for now.

Next I have meshed the insert via solid map meshing. Altough I am not satisfied with the mesh quality yet, I will proceed with the mesh for now and try to get more skilled in map meshing in the future.

Now I don't know how to proceed with meshing the epoxy component so the meshes are smoothly connected. Unfortunately I dont understand the solutions in other threads wich had comparable issues. Do I need to move my epoxy solid into the same component where I have my insert mesh?

Also, Is there maybe even a way to easily track shear stresses in the connecting surface for my analysis? The long term goal is to run a topology optimization for the enclosed insert.

Best regards,

Benjamin

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