- The thickness of the washers and nuts that are part of the assembly
- The projection length
- The grip length
The database stores the mapping between intervals of grip lengths, which a bolt can cover, and the actual length of the used bolt.
To understand how Advance Steel automatically calculates the grip length, let's see an example:
- Open Management Tools.
- Select Bolts.
- From the Bolt list select one of the bolt assemblies.
- On the Parameters tab, the grip length, bolt length and projected lengths can be configured.
To calculate the bolt and the grip lengths for a bolt assembly, it is necessary to add rules for the automatic length calculation.
To set a rule, select the check box (first rule needs to be Rule 1) and then complete the fields with the following information:
- Bolt length: we need to add, from the bolt table standard, the first bolt length for the respective bolt diameter.
- Delta of the bolt length: This is defined for each rule, and it is the length increment for the bolt. A line is automatically created in the bolt list by taking the first bolt length set on the previous tab, and then adds this increment for the next lines. If the bolt has more than one value for this increment, then more rules must be created.
- Minimum and maximum bolt grip: These values are taken from the bolt standard, but do not include the grip package thickness, which must be calculated by taking the thickness for each nut and washer included in the assembly. This value is subtracted from the minimum grip length for the bolt. The maximum grip length is calculated in the same way, but the value, from the table from which we subtract the thickness of the grip package, is the maximum grip length corresponding to the bolt length rule.
After the rule information has been added to the fields, click Apply. This will automatically calculate the grip for the other bolt lengths, for this rule. It adds enough lines based on the increment to reach the maximum grip length and then it will stop.
