Bridging the gap between design and manufacturing specifications for non-rigid parts using the influence coefficient method

The manufacturing process may lead non-rigid parts to endure large deformations which could be reduced during assembly. The manufacturing specifications of the single parts should refer to their free state or "as manufactured" state; the functional specifications should instead address the "as assembled" state. Therefore, a functional geometrical inspection requires dedicated fixtures to bring the parts in "as assembled" state. In this paper, through a linearized model that considers fixturing and elastic spring-back, we aim to correlate the functional specification to the manufacturing specifications. The model suggests a hybrid approach called "restricted skin model" that allows to reduce the degrees of freedom considering the form error when relevant. Firstly, the framework is verified in a mono-dimensional test case. Subsequently, it is verified including FEM simulation and actual measurement for two simple assemblies. The results show that the model can correctly interpret the theoretical assembly behaviour for actual applications. The use of the "restricted skin model" approach shows a negligible difference when compared to full FEM simulation with differences of 2.1 center dot 10(-7) mm for traslations and 6.0 center dot 10(-3) deg for rotations. The comparison with actual measurement values showed an error of +/- 0.2 mm at the assembly features. Furthermore, the linearized model allows a possible real-time application during production that enables to adjust manufacturing specification limits in case of process drifting.