Predicting Fitting Quality of Mechanical Assemblies Through Statistical-Based Process Capability Analysis

The process capability indices are widely used to measure the capability of the process to manufacture objects within the required tolerance. Fit quality is mainly dominated by the distribution of fit dimensions, i.e., a gap dimension. As the fit dimensions are very difficult to be measured in mass production, they are not to be considered as a direct inspection objective. The quality inspection and evaluation relative to fit quality are focused on whether the processes of assembly requirements are conformed with their specification limits respectively. Fit quality specification can be indicated by the process capability indices of mating parts. In this paper, the statistical-based process capability analysis method is presented to estimate ability of manufacturing process for considering of assembly requirements and fit quality in a mechanical assembly with asymmetric tolerances. According to this scheme, toleranced components are described as the statistical distributions of manufactured variables. In this paper a quantity factor to consider the contribution effects of variables that reduce the assembly process capability is introduced. The application of this method is demonstrated through an example and its results are discussed.