Comparative Study on Tolerance Analysis Approaches

Robust product designs are characterized by their insensitivity to disturbances and noise, such as geometric part deviations, which are inevitably observed on every manufactured workpiece. These observed deviations are covered by the axioms of manufacturing imprecision and measurement uncertainty, which convey the concepts of variability and uncertainty as fundamental aspects of robust design. In order to ensure the product function though the presence of these geometric part deviations without building physical artefacts, tolerance simulations are employed in the context of computer-aided tolerancing. Motivated by the shortcomings of existing tools, the concept of Skin Model Shapes has been developed as a novel paradigm for the computer-aided tolerance analysis. This paper presents a comparative study on the standard procedure for the tolerance analysis employing proprietary CAT tools and the tolerance simulation based on Skin Model Shapes, where a focus is set on the methodology and result interpretation. For this purpose, exemplary study cases are highlighted. Based on the comparisons, recommendations for the use of CAT tools in the context of tolerance analysis and robust design are derived.