What is the easist way to mate a spring washer between a flat washer and a bolt head?
What is the easist way to mate a spring washer between a flat washer and a bolt head?
I sometimes cheat and make very small cuts in the part to allow for rapid concentric and coincident mates. I do this with springs too. None of the parts I do this with are used in simulations.
You might want two configurations, one in the free state, and one in the loaded state, since the clamping force of the screw would flatten out a spring washer. Use the free state configuration to create the washer drawing (if needed), and the loaded configuration in the assembly to properly position the screw head, As Glen suggested, planes positioned appropriately could be used to mate.
Do you mean a spring-lock washer like the ones you get on McMaster Carr that are helical instead of disc shaped?
I put in reference geometry and mate to that-usually a start and end plane and an axis down the middle.
See attached assembly and my way of doing this. Might not be the best but its quick and seems to work ok.
I would rather use the spring washer in flat condition in assembly as that is how it is going to be there when you tighten the bolt. The spring/lock washer available in toolbox are in flat state.
In case you're using the washer in helical/open state then I would simply mate the upper edge/vertex with bolt head bottom surface and leave it interfering with flat washer.
I may have made an invalid assumption. I thought the OP was referring to a wave washer, but I realize now that I was probably wrong. If so, I agree with others to model if flat. That's how I have mine. In fact, my Lock Washer is a configuration in each size(USS Flat and SAE Hardened are the others). The Lock Washer has a cut (which is of course suppressed in the other configurations) to show the cut in the lock washer
After mating the concentric parts, at the end of the spring washer, you have a rectangle flat surface.
Select the top edge of the rectangle and mate to the flat of the screw.
I usually use solidworks toolbox for fasteners.
I don't have to worry about dimension.
The problem with a a downloaded split lockwasher from McMaster is that it will not do a concentric mate to anything for me.
PN 92146A545
I have that also, or at least similar from same. Reference Geometry to the rescue.
Its origin is in the center. You can mate the Origin as concentric to a cylindrical body, but then it can swivel off axis. You can create a Y Axis from Front Plane and Right Plane in your washer and make that concentric, which is better because it holds orientation.
John Tuohy's suggestion is conditional. That edge is not always perpendicular to the axis, or parallel to the face it meets, such as in the McMaster-Carr part that I downloaded. In this case, I could select one vertex to make coincident to face or plane instead of a line.
In support of Glen Schroeder's first reply, instead I create a reference Plane parallel to the Top Plane and coincident to that vertex, on both sides, to mate to.
The greatest benefit of mating exclusively to reference geometry which is named exactly the same across similar components, such as various sizes of this washer, is that when you replace components to alter its size, it does not ask for edges, faces, or vertices because all mated references are already found. The replace mates interface comes up with all green checks, and doesn't even Restore my active assembly window down from Maximized because it does not have to bring up the additional mate preview window.
There's no need, however, to make things easy or simple or interchangeable.
Using the origin worked. Thanks!
The Helix/Spiral1 has a sketch in it, I'd use that for Concentric
Steve C
I haven't used any spring washers, but I'd think it would work okay to create planes (if they aren't already there) tangent with the top and bottom of the spring washer, and then you could create coincident mates between these planes and the appropriate surfaces on the bolt and flat washer.