Assessment on Tolerance Representation and Tolerance Analysis in Assemblies

Abstract

Due to the difficulty of modeling the manufacturing deviations reliably, the existing geometric models, to date, have only con sidered the exact description of parts and assemblies. Yet, the tolerance representation and propagation issues in assemblies are crucial to answer parallel design of product and process queries. Many formal and informal methods have been developed. However, most proved special cases of the ANSI Y14.5M-82 specification standard. Also, the descriptions provided in actual solid and feature based de sign modelers are inadequate to ascertain a clear taxonomy of tolerance specifications, neither do they help address the assembly toler ance analysis and/or synthesis issues.The paper purposes to discuss the tolerance representation schemes as well as their underlying philosophies. Then, because toler ance analysis and tolerance synthesis in assemblies are required, among other tasks, to assign functional tolerances, measure the manufacturability and the interchangeability of parts in assemblies, ease tolerance inspection and evaluate costs of alternative assembly sequences, we shall assess deterministic and statistical methods.