Tolerance Stack Up Analysis for GD&T Applications

Stack Up Analysis Course Objectives

Students learn to apply geometric tolerancing on parts and assemblies in GeoTol’s Applications and Tolerance Stacks program. They will also learn to perform linear, axial, orientation tolerance stacks, and GD&T tolerance analysis to ensure functional requirements are met. After the stacks, reallocation of tolerances may be needed to meet manufacturing capabilities using worst case and RSS statistical methods.

Prerequisite: GeoTol Pro GD&T Fundamentals Course 

Targeted Audience: Design engineers, drafters, manufacturing engineers, quality engineers and others involved with the creation of drawings, tolerance analysis, or design review.

Course Highlights

• Course Developed and Refined for Over 25 Years
• High-Level Design Course Using Case-Study Examples
• Learn Tolerance Stack Up Analysis and GD&T Applications in the Same Course
• Customizable Content for Focused Training
• Beyond the Theory with Relatable Examples and Practical Student Exercises
• Wood and Plastic Models Used for Demonstration
• Follows Along with GeoTol Applications and Tolerance Stacks Workbook

Full Course Description:

In our 30 years of teaching the subject, we have found people may understand the fundamentals of GD&T, such as datums, position with MMC and RFS modifiers, parallelism, profile etc. However, they still lack the intimate knowledge of how to expertly apply geometric tolerancing and perform stack up analysis to clearly define and optimize their product design.

Our tolerance stack up training teaches personnel how to apply GD&T and perform tolerance stacks using a series of case study problems including sheet metal, machinings, plastic parts, castings, etc. The entire Applications and Tolerance Stacks course is 17 units, and the instructor can select problems to customize the stack up analysis program to meet the class needs. The first 6 units cover tolerance stack up, while the remaining 11 units contain the case study examples. In each case study, problems are given to students where they must establish datum reference frames and apply geometric tolerancing based on defined functional requirements. Afterwards, they must perform tolerance stacks to ensure design requirements are met. The problems start off simple but gradually increase in complexity. Students will apply concepts they learned in early GD&T training lessons to more complicated tolerance stack up examples.

Both the GD&T applications and tolerance stacks units are in the same textbook, so a lesson in the Stacks section can be taught with an alternating lesson in the Applications section. This provides variety in the program and makes stack up analysis and calculations less taxing on the students. This also links the idea that proper selection of the datums, as well as position and profile values on individual parts, has a great effect on the accumulation in the overall assembly. The problems are analyzed and discussed in student groups and as a class to make the course interactive and fun.