Tolerance (engineering)

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Tolerance in engineering is the permissible limit of variation in a dimension or value of a parameter of a manufactured object. Dimensions and parameters may vary within certain limits without significantly affecting functioning of equipment; tolerances are specified to allow leeway for imperfections in manufacturing parts and components without compromising performance.

The tolerance may be specified as a factor or percentage of the nominal value, a maximum deviation from a nominal value, an explicit range of allowed values, be specified by a note or published standard with this information, or be implied by the numeric accuracy of the nominal value. Tolerance can be symmetrical, as in 40±0.1, or asymmetrical, such as 40+0.2/-0.1.

It is good engineering practice to specify the largest possible tolerance while maintaining proper functionality. Closer or tighter tolerances are more difficult, and hence costly, to achieve. Conversely, larger or looser tolerances may significantly affect the operation of the device.

However exacting the requirements, there will always be an acceptable tolerance; an exact value is totally meaningless in most cases. What do we mean by, say, a diameter of 1 mm exactly? Is it permissible to add or remove a couple of atoms? What about thermal expansion or contraction? Wear? Do we mean as accurately as we can measure with a micrometer in a machine shop? Or must it be accurate within a fraction of a wavelength of light, for optical use?

Tolerance is different from safety factor, but an adequate safety factor will take into account relevant tolerances as well as other possible variations.

Electrical component tolerance

An electrical specification might call for a resistor with a nominal value of 100Ω (ohms), but will also state a tolerance such as "±1%". This means that any resistor with a value in the range 99Ω to 101Ω is acceptable. For critical components, one might specify that the actual resistance must remain within tolerance within a specified temperature range, over a specified lifetime, and so on.

Many commercially available resistors and capacitors of standard types, and some small inductors, are often marked with coloured bands to indicate their value and the tolerance. High-precision components of non-standard values may have numerical information printed on them.

Mechanical component tolerance

Tolerance is related to, but different from fit in mechanical engineering, which is a designed–in clearance or interference between two parts. For example, if a shaft with a nominal diameter of 10 millimeters is to have a sliding fit within a hole, the shaft might be specified with a tolerance range from 9.964 to 10 millimeters and the hole might be specified with a tolerance range from 10.04 to 10.076 millimeters. This would provide a clearance fit of somewhere between 0.04 millimeters (largest shaft paired with the smallest hole) and 0.112 millimeters (smallest shaft paired with the largest hole). In this case the size of the tolerance range for both the shaft and hole is chosen to be the same (0.036 millimeters), but this need not be the case in general

When designing mechanical components, standardized tolerances are often used. The standard (size) tolerances are divided into two categories: hole and shaft. They are labeled with a letter (capitals for holes and lowercase for shafts) and a number. For example: H7 (hole) and h7 (shaft). H7/h7 is a very common standard tolerance which gives a rather tight fit, but not so tight that you can't put the shaft in the hole by hand. The tolerances work in such a way that for a hole H7 means that the hole should be made slightly larger than the base dimension (for example 10+0.1-0, meaning that it may be up to 0.1 mm larger than the base dimension, and 0 mm smaller). The actual amount bigger/smaller depends on the base dimension. For a shaft of the same size h7 would mean 10+0-0.1, which is the opposite of H7.

Tolerance (engineering)

Electrical component tolerance

Mechanical component tolerance

See also