Stress Jumping Gap?

I've just had a result from a very loosey-goosey setup I created as a quick moch-up. The values are not accurate, but purely for visual feedback for me.

Anyhow, the result seems strange to me. I've attached an image to show what I'm talking about. The strain appears to 'jump' across a gap in the model. There are essentially 2 flat plates joined only by a coil spring, yet the strain appears to jump the gap as though it were a continuous plate.

I'm curious as to why this would happen, as I know (intuitively) this is not the result in the real world.

Thanks.

Attachments:

stress jumped gap.jpg, 89 KB

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Permalink Reply by Vadim Shapiro on July 21, 2011 at 9:04pm

Ernest, it looks like a resolution problem. See a note in this page in the documentation on missing small features. To guarantee that a particular feature is fully resolved, the size of the element should be smaller (and then some) than the feature size. The accuracy of the answer should improve as the element size gets smaller. The size of the elements is listed explicitly in the report. Very small features on a very large solid may require very high resolution.

Missed small features.no