Intro.

To Aerospace
Eng. Design

• Communication of design
outline

• Working drawings
• Tolerance considerations
• Geometric tolerances
• Written reports
• Presentations

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Working drawings

• To communicate the form and construction of your design, it is

critical that you can convey the shape and assembly of your
design in graphical form.
• To ensure error-free fabrication, it is necessary to follow an
agreed upon graphical standard (e.g. ISO, ASME, ANSI)

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Working drawings

You should review the skills that you learned in AER 222, and
become proficient at:
• Detail drawings
• Assembly drawings
• Dimensioning and tolerancing
• Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T)

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Working drawings

Your final report in this course should include drawings with

• Dimensions
• Tolerances
• Material specification
• Any special instructions on finishing and processing
• A title block with drawing check and revision control fields
All drawings must confirm to the same standard. All drawings
must be printed on the correct page size.

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Assembly drawing

Your final report in this course should include assembly

drawings with:
• Fully assembled position of all component parts
• Exploded assembly position of all components
• List of parts with component labels (bill of materials)
Your assembly views will be useful for creating user
documentation

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Working drawings

Detail drawing using an ASME standard (dym et al Fig 8.3)

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Assembly drawing

Assembly drawing with labelled components (dym et al Fig 8.4)

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Cost of tolerance

Relative cost of tolerance (dym et al Fig 8.12)

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Tolerance considerations

Consider the following design

by a junior engineer. two
plates are to be assembled
together. Four pins are used to
constrain two DOF. What is
wrong with this design?

Four pin design

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Tolerance considerations

• Accurate working drawings are required to provide sufficient

information for error-free fabrication.
• You should also consider how your components will be
assembled.

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Tolerance considerations

• Accurate working drawings are required to provide sufficient

information for error-free fabrication.
• You should also consider how your components will be
assembled.
• In the previous example, it is unlikely that all four pins will
align with the corresponding holes due to variations in
manufacturing and positioning of parts (even with narrow
tolerances)

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Tolerance considerations

Geometry of pins and holes may vary in

• Form (circularity and cylindricity)
• Orientation (perpendicularity to plate)
• Location (positional tolerance)
Narrow tolerances may make assembly impossible!

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Tolerance considerations

If we use positional tolerance

on one hole, we need to allow
for variations in two directions
for the remaining holes. We
can minimize the accumulation
of manufacturing variations by
specifying the distance
between hole centers.

Four hole fix for four pins.

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Two hole allowance in one direction Two hole allowance in two directions

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A general rule of thumb

As a general rule of thumb:

• Consider reference surfaces or locations
• Dimension and tolerance mating features (narrow tolerances)
• Tolerance outer dimensions (wide tolerances)
• Avoid cumulative error!

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Tolerance stacking

Difference in length are cumulative with respect to variation

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Mated parts

Mating of parts with different datum

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Mated parts

Mating of parts with common datum

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Geometric tolerances

You should become familiar with and be able to apply geometric

tolerance specifications such as the ASME Y14.5M-1994
standard. Geometric tolerances allow for better control of
feature shape and position.

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Geometric tolerances

For every feature which has a primary tolerance related to the

feature size, the ASME standard provides secondary tolerances
based upon:
• Form
• Profile
• Orientation
• Location
• Runout

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Geometric tolerances

ASME geometric tolerances (Dym Fig. 8.13)

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Geometric tolerances

• Of the geometric tolerances, form tolerances apply to a

specific feature and are self-contained. For example, a plate
with a thickness dimension tolerance of ±0.040 may have a
flatness geometric tolerance of at most 0.080.

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Geometric tolerances

• Of the geometric tolerances, form tolerances apply to a

specific feature and are self-contained. For example, a plate
with a thickness dimension tolerance of ±0.040 may have a
flatness geometric tolerance of at most 0.080.
• The remaining geometric tolerances are given relative to a
reference feature. A datum is frame of reference from which a
geometric tolerance could be confirmed by measurement. A
datum is preferably a surface but could also be a line or edge if
necessary.

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Hole example

• To specify a hole feature in a flat plate, you would likely first

choose the dimension and tolerance of the hole diameter. This
would be specified in a drawing using text with a leader line to
the feature.

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Geometric tolerances

While the extent of the hole has been defined, its position must
be defined. For a hole drilled in a rectangular plate, the distance
of the hole center relative to two perpendicular faces is an
obvious choice. We can control the location of the hole by
specifying two tolerances.

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Geometric tolerances

A better way of controlling the position of the center of the hole

is to use a geometric tolerance specification.

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Geometric tolerances

• The left-most box indicates the type of geometric tolerance, in

this case, positional. As this is a hole, it is the center of the
hole which defines the hole location.

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Geometric tolerances

• The second box indicates the tolerance and may also specify
the tolerance zone shape. In this case the center of the hole
must fall within a cylindrical tolerance zone of a specific
diameter. For features of size, this tolerance can also include a
material condition modifier.

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Geometric tolerances

The material condition modifiers are useful to control the tolerance of

part features which must mate or align with other part features:
• The maximum material condition (MMC) indicates that the
tolerance is applied when the feature size produces a part of the
largest mass (Examples being the smallest hole size, or the largest
pin diameter.).
• The least material condition (LMC) indicates that the tolerance is
applied when the feature size produces a part of the smallest mass
(Examples being the largest hole size, or smallest pin diameter).
• No modifier indicates that the tolerance is applied regardless of the
feature size (RFS).
In terms of the cost of manufacturing, a MMC tolerances would be
cheaper than LMC which is cheaper than RFS
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Geometric tolerances

• For a hole, MMC corresponds to a hole of the smallest

diameter. For the smallest diameter hole in this example, the
tolerance on position is 0.015. for larger diameter holes, the
difference in diameter from the MMC is a bonus tolerance.
This accounts for the fact that a larger hole can vary in
position more than a smaller hole, yet still line up with a
mating feature.

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Geometric tolerances

• The remaining boxes indicate the primary, secondary, and

tertiary datums. Each datum would be indicated by datum
symbol in the drawing. In this example, three datums would be
used to landmark the center of the cylindrical tolerance zone.

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Geometric tolerances

• As it is unlikely all surfaces of the plate would be perfectly

flat, we would likely use a datum simulator during
manufacturing to position the hole center.
• A datum simulator could be a precise reference surface that we
lace our part on, or an edge used to align the part.

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Geometric tolerances

• As it is unlikely all surfaces of the plate would be perfectly

flat, we would likely use a datum simulator during
manufacturing to position the hole center.
• A datum simulator could be a precise reference surface that we
lace our part on, or an edge used to align the part.
• For example, we may use a drill guide or jig to align our hole
on the part. First, we lay the plate on our primary datum
surface, then slide the plate until contacts secondary and
tertiary datums. The hole would then be located according to
dimensions measured from the datum simulator.

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Geometric tolerances

Example hole geometric tolerance specifications

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Technical reports

While your working drawings can convey the form of your

design, you will also need to covey the results of your work
through a well written design report. These results should be
presented in clear, concise language that takes into account the
background of your audience. It is expected that a design report
may include a great deal of technical information that may be
best organized into an appendix and summarized in the body of
the report. The writing of this report, especially in the context of
group work as in this course, is best completed in a structured
manner.

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Technical reports

1. Determine the purpose of the report (summarize as a group)

2. Construct a rough outline of the report (review a s ateam)
3. Expand the outline of the report; itemize what is to be
covered by each section.
4. Subdivide the writing tasks among the group.
5. Assemble the individual contributions into an initial draft
6. Review and edit the draft; solicit input from all stakeholders.
7. Revise and rewrite; iterate towards a final draft.
8. Prepare and submit the final version.

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Oral presentations

• Design projects typically call for meetings and presentations

with various stakeholders; to solicit input and to present
results. As with the task of writing, an oral presentation
requires clear communication of the results of a design
process. A structured approach for developing your
presentation is best.

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Oral presentations

1. Determine the purpose of your presentation

2. Know your audience
3. Construct an outline of the presentation; what topic must be
covered.
4. Develop presentation material (slides) according to the
outline of topics
5. Use a visual approach to convey information; keep to a high-
level overview of the results, with detail only as needed
6. Practice makes perfect
7. Anticipate questions.

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