Composite Mount - Meshing

Altair Forum User
Altair Forum User
Altair Employee
edited October 2020 in Community Q&A

Hello,

 

I am a student on a university Formula SAE design team. I am currently attempting to do FEA on a carbon fiber mount that connects our rear wing to the frame of our car. I am new to using Altair Hypermesh and Optistruct, and have some questions at the moment concerning properly meshing the part. Most of the resources I have found on the topic of meshing geometry for composites analysis has involved people creating the geometry within the hypermesh program, rather than importing and meshing it. I am looking to import my SolidWorks geometry file (as a .STP file) into hypermesh, and then mesh it so that composite plies can be inserted and analyzed.

 

My confusion is coming from the fact that I am not sure if I should be doing a 2D automesh or some sort of 3D mesh on the mount. I would like to do analysis on the mount by creating plies and then looking for an optimal layup orientation of the plies so that the mount will withstand the loads created by the downforce from our rear wing. Any help on how I should go about meshing and analyzing this part would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks.

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Answers

  • Altair Forum User
    Altair Forum User
    Altair Employee
    edited November 2015

    Hi,

     

    I am assuming you are telling about rear wing mounts which are thin hollow structures. Please correct me if I am wrong.

     

    In such case, you can go with 2D mesh instead of 3D. 

     

    Here is a link for tutorials and learning on Geometry cleanup, 2D meshing, etc...

     

    http://training.altairuniversity.com/modeling/meshing-2/meshing/

  • Altair Forum User
    Altair Forum User
    Altair Employee
    edited November 2015

    Some screenshot to better understand your question?

  • Altair Forum User
    Altair Forum User
    Altair Employee
    edited November 2015

    Here is a picture of the wing mount imported from SolidWorks as a .STP file. it is a 3D part. So if I was wanting to mesh this, and then create plies to optimize their orientation for certain loads that the mount will be seeing, I could use a 2D mesh?

     

    Thanks.

  • Altair Forum User
    Altair Forum User
    Altair Employee
    edited November 2015

    yes, you cloud use the 2D mesh. You need to extract the mid surface of the part on mesh on that.  

  • Altair Forum User
    Altair Forum User
    Altair Employee
    edited November 2015

    @pjs1996: Yeah, your structure has shell behaviour so you can work with 2D mesh without problem.

  • Altair Forum User
    Altair Forum User
    Altair Employee
    edited November 2015

    Thank you, I figured out how to midsurface the geometry, and then 2D mesh that. It worked great. Appreciate the help!

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