Applying Variation Simulation Analysis to 2-D Problems

Variation simulation analysis is a technology that has achieved broad popularity in the automobile, appliance, electrical machinery and other industries as a method of predicting and analyzing manufacturing variation due to tolerances of individual components and assembly operations. The technology is widely considered to be the only method to accurately analyze three dimensional variation problems.

Recently, a substantial body of work has been developed which indicates that variation simulation analysis can provide major advantages over traditional methods even on two dimensional problems.

Variation simulation analysis uses the Monte Carlo method to accurately simulate the effects of each individual tolerance distribution and complex relationships between individual tolerances can be defined. This article will go on to provide several examples of the variation simulation analysis method as applied to two dimensional parts and compare the results to traditional methods to demonstrate the accuracy improvements which can be achieved.