Many engineering applications require the use of pins which hold components together by an interference or friction fit. Knowing how much force it takes to make the pin slip is a key area of the design.
This can be obtained in using SOLIDWORKS Simulation, although the approach requires a bit of thought. Here we have a pin held in a housing…
Using a “shrink fit” with friction on the contacting faces stresses the two components. An “On Flat Faces” fixture can be used to move the pin by a fixed distance…
The force needed to make the pin slip can then be extracted afterwards using the “List Results Force” option…
A common mistake here is to add a force (instead of the fixture). If this is large enough to cause slipping however, the solver will give an error because the model is unstable….
So we would always suggest using a presciped displacement using a fixture- a little unorthodox to move something with a fixture but it is a great way to be in full contorl of the simulation and gain meaningful results.
By Craig Hudson
Applications Engineer