Composite Mount - Meshing

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.