Tolerance analysis by static analogy: numerical and experimental results

Industrial requirements to design high quality products in shorter and shorter times impose the use of numerical models to estimate the geometrical deviations of these products, which are assemblies, starting from the geometrical deviations of their components. Numerical models may support this estimation activity, thus reducing the time to market and the design costs. The free-body model is an interesting numerical method to translate the tolerance chain into a static problem solved by algebraic or graphical procedures by using the free-body diagrams of force analysis. This work presents a free-body model that is able to deal with dimensional and geometrical tolerances that involve translations of the features to which the tolerances are applied. Moreover, it validates the free-body model for tolerance analysis of rigid parts by defining and solving a case study through numerical and experimental activities. The present work uses a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the free-body model by underlining that the experimental results obtained are very close to those from the numerical model.