The influence of finite element meshing accuracy on a welding machine for offshore platform’s modal analysis

The purpose objective of this study was to investigate the influence of finite element meshing accuracy on modal analysis which is one of the basic factors affecting the accuracy of finite element analysis and mostly preoccupies the working staff in pre-processing finite element simulation models. In this paper, we established several finite element models of a welding machine for offshore platform, with the meshing accuracy as the variable and workbench software as the platform for modal analysis, as the same time, comparing the analysis results. The results indicated that for some specific structures and simulation types, mesh refinement alone does not achieve desired results, and the authors indicate that mesh refinement is rarely related to the equipment’s low-frequency modal analysis but it’s great related to the equipment’s high-frequency modal analysis. The findings of this study may serve as breaking the opinion that smaller mesh size means higher calculation precision and provides references for mesh division practices in low frequency modal analysis.