Desertfox:
I’m not quite sure what you are doing or trying to prove or disprove... but some food for thought. I made essentially the same post over in the M.E. forum, and then saw there was more, new action here.
How are you achieving your interference fit? That interference fit contact force is in compression in the shaft, it’s akin to a bearing stress on the shaft. The yield stress in bearing is actually higher than the yield stress in tension, due in part to confinement by surrounding material. (Epete’s hydrostatic compression?) Furthermore, we typically pick (or the material spec., ASTM min. is) a tensile yield stress at a .2% strain offset, but the stress strain curve continues to climb to ultimate for many steels. So, I think the yield stress would be a lower limit for the normal stress in your torque calc. if you are already at Fy. Some steels have a fairly horizontal plastic range for some amount of strain increase, with little change in stress. Then Fy would be a max. normal stress/force as GregL suggests. But, I think most alloy steels have a sloping/curving upward strain hardening range with no horiz. plateau, where stress increases with increased strain. Obviously, your upper limit must be short of Fult. Also, at those kinds of contact stresses you could probably consider a fairly high coef. of friction, since you would probably actually be getting some mechanical or almost atomic/molecular level bonding or forge welding bonding btwn. the two surfaces, I would think, but gotta think about this some more.
Check out a slight taper press fit btwn. the shaft/axle and the hub/wheel, just as the railroads mount wheels to axles. They use a little white lead lubricant, press to some very high pressing forces and can develop some significant torques, as on locomotive drive wheels. I would think that this method also develops significant mechanical or almost atomic/molecular level bonding or forge welding bonding btwn. the two surfaces.