OPTIMAL TOLERANCE DESIGN OF A PRINTER ACTUATOR.

In this paper the authors describe an extension of an existing optimization technique to the tolerance design of a printer actuator mechanism. The paper provides the designer with a method for selecting optimal nominal design values for the parameters of a generalized system which allows maximum tolerance excursions away from the nominal design values and yet still maintains performance standards. The method uses an interactive linear-programming based design optimization algorithm to select optimal nominal parameter values and their associated maximal tolerances.