Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

  • Congratulations IDS on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

GD&T is it a philosophy 5

Status
Not open for further replies.

fsincox

Aerospace
Aug 1, 2002
1,261
I am interested in hearing the different points of view on your philosophy to GD&T.
As new draftsman we had always been told “you can’t use bolt circles, only co-ordinates” and “don’t dimension from centerlines, only edges” I suspect these are a lot like the caliper guys of today. When I was first trained in Y14.5-1982 in 1987 I found it a very liberating. The philosophy I was told was if it did not violate the basic rules or is not prohibited by the standard it was OK, Notes on drawings were not desired because of language barriers, but in extreme cases, you may need to supplement with a note to explain what you intend. The sense I got was it was a tool kit to be used and the simplistic examples in the text were just that, period. The book certainly did not explore the limits of what can be done it was more of a universal language that would be built upon as languages do. English, for example, has had words like computer and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing added to it (my MS word still thinks tolerancing is not a word or is misspelled). We all know it is a word.
In my first job AGDT (After GD&T Training) I worked with a lot of machines and a lot of dowels patterns that people always wanted located to unimportant edges (“the from the edge guys”, always 2 dowels in case some don’t know), I said: “fine, we have this new tool called composite position tolerancing that was perfect for that”. Eventually, the question was asked: “now, can we put an orientation on the centerline between the dowels to refine for orientation”. “Not in the ANSI world”, I said, “this is explicitly prohibited”, if we were ISO well life would have been easy. I was told the committee was working on just that issue, and, the restatement of secondary datums in a composite position tolerance would do just that. We were also instructed that since the standard did not actually show it we may want to add a flagnote to explain what we meant. This practice is part of the standard now and since Y14.5-1994 an accepted practice, some apparently argued it was implied before in the 82, but, it was not explicitly shown.
Out here in the real world we do not always have time to wait for the politicians to make decisions, the job has a deadline and we need tools to do the job. MMC and LMC (also a new concept at the time) are good valid tools, adding it to profile tolerances to get the job done foe the heavy hitters is great, but why take it away from the poor little radius, Is it really because it is hard to measure? Life isn’t always easy.
There’s lots I want to get into with guys who are interested in exploring ideas.
Like:
To circle “E” or to circle “I”, that is the question?
Why not true position of a surface instead of profile?
Why perpendicular and parallel, not just orientation?
Is a feature defined by a radius really different than the same one defined as diameter?
Doesn’t anyone out there use the dreaded ISO and like it?
How can rule #1 not be a violation of all the logic all we are trained in as engineers and assume the worst case, as ISO does, by the way. Must we cling to our calipers in one hand and our concept that we will someday actually produced that perfect feature at MMC in the other? (When I am asked by the shop to accept an oversize shaft is it more perfect, then?)
Anyway thanks, if you bothered to read this far, I guess I will get off my soapbox for now to give someone else a chance.
 
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

I always think of it this way: GD&T is a language, and like any language there are various ways to say things. Some people use a lot of slang; it gets the idea across, but it's not to the standard. So in many ways I agree with you-- if it isn't violating the standard, you can often get "creative" with GD&T.

The business about Rule #1 goes back at least 100 years to Mr. Taylor. Suppose he made a drawing of a cylindrical part and gave it a diameter of 1 inch ± .020. He got tired of his manufacturers sending back 1-inch pins that were slightly bent -- hey dude, this isn't going to fit properly in the machine. So the "Taylor Principle" says that 1 ± .020 means the cross-section AND the envelope size.

We now call this Rule #1. It makes sense to me; in other countries it never caught on, I guess.

As for perpendicularity and parallelism instead of a general orientation symbol, some folks have lobbied that everything could be boiled down to a couple symbols -- maybe the profile symbols, position, and both runouts. But why dumb down the language? How hard is it to remember that perpendicularity is an orientation control of a 90º angle vs. parallelism, which is 0º?

The main point is that a standardized language makes the world work better, and at this point we have ASME and ISO. There are pros and cons to each system. Changes are possible, but both systems suffer from the bureaucracy that us engineers usually hate!

John-Paul Belanger
Certified Sr. GD&T Professional
 
Thank you Belanger, for your post, the Taylor principle, that right, I remember now.
I do not really have a problem with rule #1 either; it is the way WE were broughtup. I does seem to me to be an odd violation of engineering logic, though. My issue is with the people that think their way is the only way it can be and berate others who may dare to think differently, the ISO world for example. I am frightened, too, by the seeming complexity of all the implied tolerances of ISO 2768-2(Ihope that is it) but I assume these are rational people and maybe if you are trained in it, it isn’t that bad. Besides maybe they have a good idea every once and a while, Like the flatness of a center plane vs. straightness I have been talking about, that to me seems like a win for logic.
My understanding is we created GD&T and we should be proud of that but some of the issues seem more like school yard squabbling, True Position vs. Profile who really cared
Does anyone here know why? I assume position came first, I have my mil-std-8, 1966, 1973 and 1982 at work now so I can’t check when profile was first introduced, but,I suspect it was a well this is our’s and we don’t like it kind of thing and besides we are bigger, na na na.
or maybe it is a well we said you can’t use position on surfaces kind of thing an we don’t want to change now like we did on implied MMC. I can understand, we all know politics; I just want to know if there is a good reason.
 
Belanger,
At a very helpful GD&T site they show a condition involving a part with a flanged bolt mounting surface with a large diameter male or female pilot diameter, it doesn't really matter which. The pilot length is very small in height relative the flat mounting face. The claim is made that to control the pilot diameter with a perpendicularity call out at MMC to the face is a waste of time because it cant be checked, not enough length on the pilot to get 2 separate readings, I imagine.
The standard shows these kind of things face primary datum, pilot diameter secondary datum. perpendicularity of the pilot to the bore at MMC so the parts will fit. I thought we were just discrbing the condition of assembly by adding it. I don't really care what they check or don't check or how they check it.
Have things changed? Are we back to the manufacturing tells us what to do days?
 
I know exactly the type of part you're describing. Some folks put perpendicularity MMC on the piloting diameter even if it's short and stubby. I suppose it can be checked, by simply using a functional gage made to the virtual condition. But with such a short feature, the actual perpendicularity deviation will be negligible.

I think the reason people do it is an unofficial rule that each datum in a common datum reference frame should be tied back to its preceding datum. So the primary datum face doesn't need any GD&T (except perhaps flatness), and the secondary datum feature should be tied back to the primary, etc. In the scenario you described, the only relationship of secondary back to primary is orientation.

John-Paul Belanger
Certified Sr. GD&T Professional
 
Good points, guys, but I have to disagree on JP's wording. Reducing the symbols to just 3 or 4 isn't "dumbing it down", it actually requires a significantly better fundamental understanding of ALL GD&T concepts and controls because you have to understand the subtleties of interpretation.

As I understand it, the original ANSI GD&T was really the first international standard; it was the amalgamation of the national and defense standards of Canada, UK, USA, and maybe others. ANSI/ASME GD&T was the starting point for ISO's standard(s), and at some point ISO decided to go their own way. There have been / are ongoing efforts to unify the two, but from several sources I've heard that ISO is making it their goal to eliminate ASME GD&T. To that end, there is interest/intent within ISO to add a clause to their standard(s) to the effect that any engineering document which does not specify the governing standard will default to ISO for the standards. That's a substantial shot across the bow. The appropriate course of action should be that the best of both be integrated into a single doc, but I'm not convinced that both parties are actually willing to give & take, or act on the best interests of engineering & manufacturing.

Jim Sykes, P.Eng, GDTP-S
Profile Services TecEase, Inc.
 
So what would the result be if ASME decided to add the same statement to their standards?

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]
 
tit-for-tat won't work. Frankly, I don't think such a statement would have any legal bearing unless each nation passed it into their own codes/laws, and I don't see too many countries doing that. What would happen when a standard is revised...then you'd have to update all existing drawings to be in conformance or risk "surprises" when you go into manufacturing? Personally, I would tend to intentionally avoid dictatorial decrees/standards just in case there's something else going on.

Jim Sykes, P.Eng, GDTP-S
Profile Services TecEase, Inc.
 
MechNorth, the revision etc. part is got round by the fact that with ASME at least the rev (year) of the standard is listed on the drawing.

Posting guidelines faq731-376 (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484
 
Sorry about that. We need a "tongue-in-cheek" emoticon, as my post was more facetious than anything.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]
 
Well, I agree it should be, Kenat ... but mostly isn't; it is improving but it's an ongoing battle even in the very large companies where all it would take would be to add it to the company title block (yes, I know what's involved in that battle too; been there, proudly show the battle scars). It is recommended to put the standard and revision level on the drawing to give you a snapshot in time of the basis for interpretation. If either ISO or ASME add the "It's us unless you state otherwise" clause, then which is it...and which revision? I can't envision that the legal systems of the english-biased countries would ever allow such a global catch-all to be the basis of a legal settlement.

Jim Sykes, P.Eng, GDTP-S
Profile Services TecEase, Inc.
 
Well, as to which rev I would hope that they'd either say "latest version" or, perhaps better, "the version in effect when the drawing was initially released" or something. Of course, that's not easy to tell on some of the drawings that would be subject to drawing standard not being already specified on the drawing.

Posting guidelines faq731-376 (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484
 
I get all sorts of ideas from students too about how to get around putting the standard and revision on the drawing, but in the end it's all about the money. If it's not clear from looking at the drawing what standard to use, then it's likely the courts will side with the open interpretation of the drawing. "Why risk it?" I ask in my seminars. One company that I taught at sent their corporate lawyer to see me during lunch one day to ask me why I put it that way; they didn't want to go thru the work & expense of standadizing it in their title block. I explained that in the absence of definitive guidance, any interpretation of the design may be acceptable to any given judge. It may be a minor loss, or it could be lots of significant figures. The engineering manager came to see me after the seminar to say they would be changing their title block; the exposure of a current lawsuit was more than the cost of implementing the change.

Jim Sykes, P.Eng, GDTP-S
Profile Services TecEase, Inc.
 
When I said "dumbing down," I meant that a language with fewer symbols is dumbed down in that it can't say things as specifically as a language with more symbols. But I suppose the users of the system would have to be smarter to understand the interpretations of these fewer symbols. Semantics. :)

John-Paul Belanger
Certified Sr. GD&T Professional
 
During a refresher (to me I had taken it before and was using it) course in GD&T, I found that at one point the default for a true position tolerance was MMC, then it changed to no default, it had to be stated, and now it defaults to RFS. If the standard is not spelled out on the drawing, you have to assume that the standard that a judge would apply is the one that is the most likely to cause the part to break or otherwise not function. Much safer to have the standard clearly stated on the drawing.

Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services
 
to Simply reply to an early comment in the OP

"don't dimension from centerlines, only edges"

Centerlines do not exist without edges. Center of what? Right? ASME does allow you to establish a center plan as a datum. In that requirement, the feature of size edges define the center plane. Just because one person may not "worry" about where the centerline is in relation to the edges, that doesn't mean it isn't needed. Without being tied to a FOS, it would be easy for any manufacturer to declare that the source centerline itself was not defined (no standard, not even ISO creates a default understanding of what a CL is). Some link to a feature of size is necessary or how else would one fully define the product definition?

Also, Regarding ISO trying to eliminate ASME;
ASME is a contributor to ISO these days. There will likely be a unification of the two standards within the next 75 years, but I doubt any contempary move in the US to replace ASME with ISO outright will be very successful, as ISO has many open issues that have been addressed in ASME as a result of experience and hundreds (if not thousands) of lawsuits. Elimination of Rule #1, for example, would be chaos for industry here. As lawsuits start affecting ISO users in Europe, I suspect it will start resembling ASME.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group
 
The centerline thing, I am using that to paraphrase my personal experience of feeling a liberated to being able to dimension functionally, not by process. The field I was in used a lot of bores and dowels and the edges were “to suit at assembly”. I do not want to give up now.
How about position tolerance to a zone of X degrees? Say a wedge shape boss and you want to invoke MMC or LMC. Why not? I don’t see anything conceptually wrong with it. Now the directly opposed surfaces are not parallel they radiate from a common center.
Apparently not allowed after 1994. The restriction seems arbitrary to me.
 
Belanger,
"I think the reason people do it is an unofficial rule".
In the 82 version we had rule number #5, it instructs you to gage datums based on a the virtual condition how do you really calculate it with out a statement of what it actually is. Rule #5 is not an unofficial rule it is still there section 2.11.3 ASME y14.5M-1994. To not have a statement, to me, is no different than showing 2 diameters on center and no tolerance and then saying what is the location tolerance between the diameters, well we don't know.
I get the feeling you agree, though?
 
Fsincox, there's no preclusion of wedge shaped tolerance zones in '94. You can still use +/- degrees, HOWEVER then you need to add dimension origin symbols to indicate the apex of the wedge and the surface from which the zone will be measured. From a mechanical sense though, wedge shaped tolerance zones aren't commonly needed or appropriate to the function of the part. The only times tha I've seen a good use for a wedge shaped tolerance zone was in precision optics and acoustics. In both cases, the physics of the functionality is dictated by +/- degrees as opposed to a linear tolerance zone.

Jim Sykes, P.Eng, GDTP-S
Profile Services TecEase, Inc.
 
Fsincox,

I agree to a degree.

Paragraph 2.11.3 (1994) which you mentioned only says that a virtual condition exists IF the datum feature is controlled by another geometric tolerance.

I said that there's an "unofficial rule" which tells folks that a secondary datum feature should be tied back to the primary datum, and the tertiary datum feature should be tied back to the primary and secondary datums. Whether that gets into virtual condition depends on their relationships and the tolerance used.

But yes, the whole thing about showing two diameters on the same center without addressing their coaxiality tolerance is ambiguous.

John-Paul Belanger
Certified Sr. GD&T Professional
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor