Tolerance evaluation of minimum zone straightness using non-linear programming techniques: a spreadsheet approach

In general, non-linear optimization programs are formulated to evaluate the minimum zone straightness. This paper presents a spreadsheet approach that can be applied to determine the straightness errors of discrete data sampled from a continuous shape. The developed approach is easy to implement, and can obtain the minimum zone straightness based on the international standard, ANSI Y14.5M standard on geometric dimensioning and tolerancing. The primary goal of this spreadsheet implementation attempts to help reduce the possibility of making erroneous inspection decision, and then to precisely reflect the effect of inspection as early as possible for the purpose of quality control. An experimental study is conducted on examples taken from the literature and simulation data sets. Comparisons of the proposed approach against the existing methods in the previous studies are reported. Furthermore, the approach is demonstrated to be a viable tool for straightness verification in terms of the simulation data sets in which the theoretical straightness errors are known as a priori.