faying surface calculation

[jsmerrill]

For those of you who may not know, a faying surface is the contact surface between two components. Sometimes the faying surface will only comprise a portion of the total surface on each component.


I have stumped dozens of engineers at my work (Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company) in trying to figure out how to calculate the faying surface area in Pro/E or Pro/Mechanica. Does anyone know how to do this?


I'm not the only one interested in the answer to this question. It is very useful to stress and thermal analysts to be able to determine this value quickly, rather than having to do a time-consuming brute force method.


Jason

 

[Brian_Adkins]

I guess you could tweak the assembly temporarily such that the parts interfered by a thickness of say 0.1mm ... then you calculate the resulting interference volume and divide that number by the 0.1mm to get an area...


Can't think of a direct method off-hand, though.


-Brian