Throttling area not only determines flow rate but also influences behavior of a valve. And, the throttling area ( also called smallest area ) is a very important factor required to design carefully. Unfortunately, the throttling area is always difficult to determine because of relatively complex structure, and the pure study for throttling area is published barely although there are also some existing formulas. For getting more suitable models that are not sensitive to the displacement of spool and cone angle, this paper carries out comparison for different principles, and finally finds that the projective area based on annular area is the best one for the cone valve. During this process, this paper shows a set of mathematic models, simulation and test results, which ensures a successful design for a valve mentioned in the paper and brings a universal model for throttling area of cone valve.