COST-TOLERANCE RELATIONSHIPS FOR NONTRADITIONAL MACHINING PROCESSES

In recent years, non-traditional machining processes have been growing in popularity and their applications have continued to increase. Howe ver, very limited research work has been carried out to investigate th eir economic implications on tolerance allocation This paper reports o n cast-tolerance relationships for non-traditional processes, namely, electrical discharge wire machining and laser beam machining. Medium c arbon steel plates are machined using the two processes to obtain cost -tolerance data which are fitted to various mathematical models. A thi rd-degree polynomial function has been found which gives the most repr esentative fit to the data obtained. An example is presented to illust rate the application and to compare the cost implication of the two ma chining processes.