Abstract
In the mechanical product design, tolerance specification is a crucial process to select tolerance types to control the geometrical variation of the features on a workpiece. Tolerance specification is a kind of decision-making process which needs to consider many influential factors of the manufacturing cost and quality requirement of a workpiece. In this context, those factors are classified into two categories, that of static factors from the rules and standards, and that of dynamic factors based on the manufacturing site’s information. This paper presents a novel method for computer-aided tolerance specification to evaluate both types of factors while the traditional methods only take the static factors into considerations. Those factors are assessed by the developed MADM (multiple attributes decision-making) algorithm, assisted with the rule-based algorithm and axiomatic design algorithm. A case study is undertaken, and its result shows the effect of dynamic factors on the output of tolerance specification. The results adhere to the ISO standard.
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Funding
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51575484 and U1501248) and Science Fund for Creative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51521064). The authors also received supports from the EPSRC Future Advanced Metrology Hub (Ref. EP/P006930/1).
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Decomposition operation for a feature
The variation of a feature is considered as a combination of one/several types of variations in tolerance specification. In this context, decomposition refers to an operation to separate those variations into the variations of translation, rotation and form. In this paper, the decomposition is developed based on the kinematics [45] and the geometrical characteristics of the feature. An example of this operation is illustrated in Fig. 12. The tolerances can control variations decoupling by this decomposition method. According to the definition of each geometric tolerance, a positioning tolerance controls three variations; an orientation tolerance controls rotation variation and form variation [46]; a form tolerance only controls form variation (see Fig. 12). In this case, a plane could be decomposed to one, two or three variations and noted as sp1, sp2 and sp3 respectively.
Some features consist of a derive feature with an integral feature, which the decomposition has more than one results. Rule 1 and Rule 2 is supplied in order to provide unambiguous results.
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Rule 1: If a feature has derived feature(s), then (1) the rotation and translation variation of a feature are controlled through its derived feature first and (2) the form variation of a feature is controlled through its integral feature.
For example, the variations of a cylinder are decomposed to the positioning variation of its axis, the rotation variation of its axis, the form variation of its axis, the axial variation of integral feature and the radial variation of an integral feature. It means that the number of variations of a cylinder could be 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.
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Rule 2: If a feature is a primary datum, its rotation and translation variation are not considered; if a feature is a secondary datum, its positioning variation is not considered.
A decomposition scheme is a result of the decomposition, e.g. “decompose to kinematic and form variation”. A candidate schemes set S is a group of the decomposition schemes of a feature. The candidate tolerances, geometric type of feature and position relationship with DRF are applied to generate the S.
Appendix 2: The tables of DPs, candidate tolerances, candidate schemes set and estimation of attributes
Appendix 3: The parameters in the case study
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Zhao, Q., Li, T., Cao, Y. et al. A computer-aided tolerance specification method based on multiple attributes decision-making. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 111, 1735–1750 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-020-06137-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-020-06137-5