Integrating Form Error into Tolerance Analysis Using Variational Model

摘要

Tolerance analysis helps to solve the trade-off between the quality and the cost of the whole assembly, since it allows to verify the allocation of the tolerances to the single components. It builds a stack-up of dimensions and tolerances belonging to the single components and it studies its influence on the assembly requirements. This work presents how it is possible to deal with form error when a tolerance analysis is carried out by means of a Variational model. It modifies the expression of the stack-up function in order to overcome the shortage of Variational model that the form error cannot be processed. The proposed approach was applied to a case study constituted by three rigid parts. The obtained results show that the form error significantly influences the assembly requirements and, therefore, it should not be ignored in the tolerance analysis of rigid assemblies.