I don't think the that the big trick is utilizing FEA for this; rather the big trick is trying to quantify 'feel' (i.e. what parameters describe good 'feel' vs. bad 'feel' -- acceleration?, jerk?, others?).
If one knows how to quantify this, then numerical simluation can be done. I know people in automotive who have quantified 'good' door handle opening behavior and then successfully simulated it (similarly I am familiar with people quantifying 'good' door slam based on door excitations).
If the reality can be quantified, then the numerical simulation can likely be tied to it. Unfortunately, objectively quantifying these things is very difficult.
Brad
Thanks for your reply on "Simulating the feel". Is it possible to get in touch with the people you know to get some more information?
Thanks,
I wish I could give that to you; however the work was proprietary within their company, so they cannot reveal those details. Also, due to this there were no publicly-available reports issued for their work.
I would recommend searching through SAE's papers. I would expect somebody would've published something along these lines.