SolidWorks: Interference Detection
When working with moving parts and components in assemblies, Interference Detection can be incredibly helpful. If your assembly has a door or a sliding component, Interference Detection can determine whether that component has the correct range of motion, or if the component will be stopped short of the desired range.
The Interference Detection tool can be found in the Evaluate tab, as shown below in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Interference Detection Location
Once in the menu, the first thing to do is to choose the components to evaluate. The menu is shown below in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Component Selection
By default, the selected component will be the assembly. This can be cleared by right-clicking the name of the assembly and selecting delete. To select new components, click on the desired component in the graphics window. The next option, excluded components, is turned off by default. When excluded components is turned on, there is an option to hide excluded components from view, which makes the selected components invisible, and remember excluded components, which means that the selected components will be excluded in the next instance of interference detection.
Once the desired components are selected, there are more options to configure, which are shown below in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Interference Detection Options
The first option, “treat coincidence as interference”, means that any coincident mate will show up as interference. The next option, “show ignored interferences”, means that any interference that has been ignored will appear in the graphics window and the results window. The next option, “Treat subassemblies as components”, can be used to combine subassemblies into one component. This option will ignore any instances of interference in subassemblies. “Include multibody part interferences” will detect interferences in any multibody parts in the assembly. The next two options, “Create fasteners folder” and “Create matching cosmetic threads folder”, are incredibly helpful if the assembly has a lot of fasteners or threads. Since there is usually interference with fasteners and threads, this will create a folder with all the fastener and thread interferences, which does not clutter up the Results section. The final option, “Ignore hidden bodies/components”, when turned on, does not consider the instances of interference from bodies or components hidden in the assembly.
The next set of options are regarding the view of the non-interfering components and are shown below in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Non-Interfering Components Options
When a component does not have any interference, it can be displayed as hidden, wireframe, or transparent. The “Use current” option uses the display from the assembly. An example of wireframe is shown below in Figure 5.
Figure 5: Wireframe Example
Once the calculate button is pressed, the above image will appear in the graphics window. Each instance of interference will appear in the results window, as shown below in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Results Section
Selecting an instance of interference will make the interference appear red in the graphics window, as shown below in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Interference
If the “Component view” option is selected, the entire component will turn purple. Each component will have a drop-down list that can be expanded to show each individual interference. When working with an assembly that has any components with any range of motion, such as a door or a slide, interference detection is helpful to ensure the component has the desired range of motion.
Thanks for reading our Blog, for any questions or contract services please feel free to contact us!