CAPTURING ASSEMBLY TOLERANCES AND CRITERIA IN A COMMON MODEL

摘要

Assemblies of mechanical parts are typically modeled as collections of rigid solids, constrained by contact conditions at "mating" faces. We have previously proposed a method ― called GapSpace ― of modeling and representing assemblies with constraints arising from either face adjacency or face contact. This method of specification allows less restrictive tolerances to be placed on the assembly components, resulting in specifications that are less expensive to meet. In this paper we show how various assembly metrics and criteria can be represented with GapSpace, and how to analyze toleranced assemblies for conformance to these criteria. These analyses show quantitatively the importance of deciding which part dimensions will have tolerances applied to them, in addition to the choice of the actual tolerance values.