Gripper Force Calculator

Required Grip Force is the TOTAL clamp force needed across the whole gripper -- set by Part Weight, Max Acceleration, Friction Coefficient, Safety Factor, and Grip Type -- before that total is split across individual fingers. Number of Fingers only determines how that fixed total is shared: Force per Finger falls as Number of Fingers rises, but the total the gripper as a whole must supply stays the same.

A Parallel (Friction) grip holds the part purely through friction between the fingers and the part surface, so Required Grip Force divides by Friction Coefficient directly -- a lower coefficient (a slippery surface) demands proportionally more clamp force. An Encompassing grip instead cradles the part by matching its shape, so it doesn't rely on friction to prevent slipping and Friction Coefficient has no effect on Required Grip Force in that mode.

It combines the part's weight (Part Weight x 9.81 m/s^2, its gravitational force) and the extra inertial force from Max Acceleration as a Pythagorean sum, treating the robot's acceleration as roughly perpendicular to gravity -- the typical case for an arm accelerating horizontally while holding a part vertically. A robot that instead accelerates straight up or down would need a simple sum rather than this right-angle combination.

Safety Factor multiplies the raw calculated Required Grip Force by a margin (typically 2.0 for production use, per this calculator's default) to cover real-world variability this simplified model doesn't capture directly -- friction coefficient drift from wear or contamination, unmodeled shock loads during acceleration or deceleration, and manufacturing tolerance in the gripper itself.

No -- it's a fixed 10mm x 10mm assumption baked into the calculation, not a value you can change here. A real gripper's finger pads or jaw faces may have a larger or smaller actual contact area, which would proportionally lower or raise the true pressure on the part; treat Contact Pressure as illustrative unless your gripper's contact patch genuinely matches 100 mm^2.