ToleranceCalc Stack-up analysis tutorial

Overview Tolerance analysis is perhaps the most important design step essential for reducing manufacturing costs - while achieving optimal product performance goals. While most designers and engineers using CAD for product design apply nominal values to a parts dimension - in real life nothing is manufactured to the nominal values. Part dimensions fall somewhere between the plus and minus values of their tolerance limits. When the tolerances stack-up the assembly may not perform optimally. The central issue in tolerance analysis is users are more commonly faced with the challenges of tolerance allocation rather than tolerance analysis. This is so because manufacturing resources in any organizations are already in place and are not easily changeable. The available tolerance budget must be distributed or allocated among the components in some rational way in order to optimize performance while ensuring producibility. ToleranceCalc allows CAD users to mix worst-case and statistical analysis in the same study to achieve optimal tolerance distribution while satisfying the assembly performance goals. ToleranceCalc is an important link between engineering and manufacturing. It can become a common ground on which to build an interface between the two, to open a dialog based on common interests and competing requirements. ToleranceCalc works on linear tolerance vectors that are identified and drawn in CAD drawings. The user need to identify and draw the tolerance vector chain, which is a series of connected lines starting from the datum or the reference point and ending in the point of interest that is affected by the cumulative effect of tolerances. You can easily use the constraining tools available in your CAD system to simply connect the dots to create a tolerance chain. The lines representing the vector chain are saved in the DXF standard format in CAD. ToleranceCalc reads this file and allows user to perform concurrent tolerance analysis and budgeting using interactive answers. Start of tutorial To understand the basic concept of ToleranceCalc, you will perform tolerance analysis and allocation of an assembly consisting of three elements AB, BC, and CD as shown in the following figure.

There are three tolerance elements in this chain. The datum point of the tolerance chain is at A. The final point affected by tolerances stacking-up is D. The tolerance deltas of contributors AB, BC, and CD are plus and minus .001, .002, and .003 respectively. ToleranceCalc will be used to calculate the Max, min, and the Worst Case values of the distance between A and D that arise for all possible combinations of the individual tolerance variances. The tolerance vector chain that you draw in CAD and then save in DXF file format will look like the following illustration:

Note: The file called stackup.dxf containing this chain is included and will be used to perform the tolerance analysis. Given the linear tolerances of the three elements, the design questions are: 1. What is the worst-case linear distance (AD) between the first point and the last point in the chain (in this exercise we call this value L)? 2. What is the variation in length of each of the contributors when the worst case occurs? 3. What are the co-ordinates of the points representing the holes centered at B and C when the worst case occurs? Note: ToleranceCalc automatically conforms to the units of the CAD system, allowing you to work with unitless numbers. Double click on the ToleranceCalc.exe to start it. Note: you can resize this document so that the ToleranceCalc wizard and the document are visible side-by-side on your computer screen. Click on the Load button in ToleranceCalc and load the file named stackup.dxf as shown in the following figure.

. Click on Show All box at the bottom left. All contributing elements will be displayed with the first contributor highlighted as shown in the following illustration.

Type in -.001 and +.001 in the Low and High boxes as shown in the following figure, and click on the next button.

Type in -.002 and +.002 in the Low and High boxes as shown in the following figure, and click on the next button.

Type in -.003 and +.003 in the Low and High boxes as shown in the following figure, and click on the Calculate Now button.

In a split-second ToleranceCalc will display the results as shown in the following figure.

ToleranceCalc toggles the model through all combinations of the tolerance deltas to calculate the Max, Min, and worst case stack values. What you see the Absolute Max, Min, and Worst-Case Values of the length of AD, and the Max, Min, and Worst-case values of the X and Y co-ordinates of the point D.

The Stack-up pane window also shows the deltas for the length of AD and the delta X and delta Y of the co-ordinates D from nominal. The statistical analysis answers are the Mean and Standard deviation of the Delta L of the length of AD from nominal, and the Delta X and Y of the coordinate of D from nominal. Now you can interrogate any of the values to get detailed information. Click on Worst Absolute L to highlight it as shown in the above figure and click on the Details Tab. The Detail Tab shows the Absolute X and Y co-ordinates of the point of interest (point D in this example) as well as the status of each contributor when the worst case occurred as shown in the following illustration.

Now you can click on the Setup tab, allocate new values for tolerance deltas, and use the Calculate Now button to get an instantaneous feedback on the overall effect of the change on the tolerance stacks and statistical values. Saving the experiment You can save the tolerance vectors and any tolerance delta settings as .TCLC file. You can then reload the tolerance settings or the vectors selectively using the Load command.