Boolean union fails, but why?

hey Charles i dont even want to say how much time i spent on one of your examples and did not succeed i had multiple approaches but always ended up that surfaces did not want to work with comments like non manifold edges found.

you can try with the script placed in this thread Split curves at every intersection it helps you to split each surface with each other, i gave up on it because my computer is about 7 years old, maybe you have a quicker one and can succeed. it will not give up so easy i guess but you have to be patient and let it work through because having appropriate splits is the only thing which still can help you there i believe. after that you have to delete all the unwanted surfaces and join it carefully together. its still a lot of work and no guarantee.

booleans function may also have problems determining which surface shall be joined together with which because you have them stack into each other so much that some surfaces get split over several other surfaces and rejoined at completely different intersections… i dont want to make any theories but thats tough stuff. to cascade shapes intoo each other having them touch on one curve only till they get rejoined is always pushing booleans to its limits, i would suggest finding a better workflow for this.