Monte Carlo Method for the Uncertainty Evaluation of Spatial Straightness Error Based on New Generation Geometrical Product Specification

Straightness error is an important parameter in measuring high-precision shafts. New generation geometrical product specification(GPS) requires the measurement uncertainty characterizing the reliability of the results should be given together when the measurement result is given. Nowadays most researches on straightness focus on error calculation and only several research projects evaluate the measurement uncertainty based on "The Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement(GUM)". In order to compute spatial straightness error(SSE) accurately and rapidly and overcome the limitations of GUM, a quasi particle swarm optimization(QPSO) is proposed to solve the minimum zone SSE and Monte Carlo Method(MCM) is developed to estimate the measurement uncertainty. The mathematical model of minimum zone SSE is formulated. In QPSO quasi-random sequences are applied to the generation of the initial position and velocity of particles and their velocities are modified by the constriction factor approach. The flow of measurement uncertainty evaluation based on MCM is proposed, where the heart is repeatedly sampling from the probability density function(PDF) for every input quantity and evaluating the model in each case. The minimum zone SSE of a shaft measured on a Coordinate Measuring Machine(CMM) is calculated by QPSO and the measurement uncertainty is evaluated by MCM on the basis of analyzing the uncertainty contributors. The results show that the uncertainty directly influences the product judgment result. Therefore it is scientific and reasonable to consider the influence of the uncertainty in judging whether the parts are accepted or rejected, especially for those located in the uncertainty zone. The proposed method is especially suitable when the PDF of the measurand cannot adequately be approximated by a Gaussian distribution or a scaled and shifted t-distribution and the measurement model is non-linear.