The aim with this thesis work has been to evaluate a simulation tool for 1D-analysis of tolerancechains,
followed by a comparison with the current method to calculate tolerance-chains in 1D
with spreadsheets in Excel. The simulation tool is named EZtol and has existed for one and a half
year. The thesis work has been carried out on assignment from Scania CV AB. The company
wanted us to evaluate if the software could replace the current method. The thesis work has
been carried out during 10 weeks and was divided in three main sections: Education in terms of
a web-course and internal course, simulation of different tolerance-chains in the software as
well as calculations in the spreadsheet and finally make a scientific report based on the thesis
work.
The essay is divided in six chapters. The first chapter describes the background, aim and
purpose of the thesis work. The second chapter describes how the situation of tolerance-chain
calculations looks today, which has shown that there is a certain need of a software. The
designers were interviewed so that the thesis workers could establish what the spreadsheet
could not fulfill, which was graphic visualization of tolerance-chains and also a list with the
contributions of all tolerances. The third chapter describes the theories that have been used for
this thesis work. The theories are Tutorial in EZtol, Fundamental facts about tolerances and
tolerance‐chains and Simulation and CATIA V5.
In the fifth chapter the results of this thesis work are featured, which are presented as
advantages and disadvantages. The main advantages with the software are graphic visualization
of the tolerance-chains as well as a list that shows the contributions of every tolerance. The
primary disadvantage though is that the software cannot handle long and more complicated
tolerance-chains. Which has led to the conclusion that the thesis workers do not recommend the
software to Scania at present time. Scanias requirements cannot be fulfilled with the software
because it has not been able to handle all of Scanias tolerance-chains. But since the EZtol concept
is good the software is estimated to potentially fulfill Scanias needs in a few years. A
recommendation is that the software ought to be reexamined in the future.