We'll keep on using the FSAE steering wheel simulation file.
When doing a static stress analysis,
we don't actually analyze the behavior between the solid models.
We use a mesh to represent the model.
The number and spacing between mesh elements can affect the accuracy of the simulation.
In the browser, there is a section called mesh.
There's nothing displayed under it as we've not yet created a mesh,
but this will display the meshes and allow us to turn their visibility on and off.
If we right-click on the mesh section,
we can choose the generate mesh option to calculate the mesh for each of the components.
This will generate a mesh based on the default settings.
If you want to change the default settings,
you can go back to the mesh section and select the edit icon on the right.
The mesh settings dialog shows this that
the mesh elements are based on a percentage of the model size.
We can use an option to set that mesh scale per component,
or set an absolute size.
There are also some advanced settings that,
for the moment, we will not use for this study.
But if we close the dialog,
there is an option under manage that we will use to
get better control of the mesh where it's needed most.
Zooming in on the spline area,
we can use the browser to turn off the visibility of the steering shaft by
using the light bulb icon, not the checkbox.
Now we can see the size of the mesh on the faces of the spline.
Returning to the manage pull-down,
we'll start the local mesh control tool.
First, we'll select the face of one of the splines,
and then for the body selection, pick the base plate.
Then the slide bar can be used to rough in a mesh size,
sliding it toward the fine side around six millimeter.
We can pick OK and see the new local mesh controls area in the browser,
and see that there's a warning that the mesh needs to be regenerated.
Let's regenerate the mesh and look at the results.
When you have an area of concentrated load as we expect the splines will be,
having more mesh elements to analyze will yield more accurate results.
Now the mesh that's applied to the splines is much finer.
Another thing that's important with meshes is to have consistency of
mesh size where different components will be transferring loads to one another.
So let's turn the steering shaft back on,
turn the base plate off,
and take a look at the mesh on the spine of the steering shaft.
Here, we see the element on the steering shaft splines are larger.
For now, we'll accept this and turn the steering wheel base plate back on.
Now we should save the file and be ready for what's next.
