Tolerance Analysis and Diagnosis Model of Compliant Block Assembly Considering Welding Deformation

This paper proposes a simplified tolerance analysis and diagnosis model including the effects of welding distortion, for accuracy control in ship block assembly processes. The variation simulation model for tolerance analysis utilizes the concepts of the sources of variation and the compliant mechanical assembly model to include the welding distortions. The proposed model utilizes welding distortion patterns and a transformation matrix to efficiently model the deformation during the joining process. The diagnosis model assumes the multi-stage assemblies and that the variations of previous stages are propagated to the current stage. It calculates the sensitivity; a linear mapping from input parts to output assembly variations, and includes the effects of welding distortion as an additional vector that deviates the assembly variation further. The diagnosis model predicts the quantitative effect of each source of variations to the final assembly’s geometrical variation, based on normal equation and assembly stage’s state space equation model. The proposed model is applied to a realistic block assembly process for validation purpose. The model can effectively simulate the propagation of welding distortion as well as quantitatively identify variation patterns and welding processes throughout the multi-stage assembly process.