Optimization Method for Measuring and Evaluating Hole-Group Position Under the Combined Effects of Datum Shift and Maximum Material Condition

Abstract

This paper investigates the combined effects of the Maximum Material Condition (MMC) modifier and datum feature shift on hole-group positional tolerance evaluation. The formulation follows ASME Y14.5-2018 as the primary normative framework, with ISO GPS terminology as a supplementary comparative reference. A constrained minimum-zone virtual-gauge method is proposed for the virtual inspection of planar hole patterns. Virtual gauge is constructed according to virtual condition boundary definitions, and optimized by rigid rotation and translation under non-interference constraints and datum shift limits, to verify compliance of the measured hole group with position tolerance specifications. The experiments show that the proposed method achieves a relative error of 0.13% with respect to the near-global reference solution, while reducing the interference rate from 17% (unconstrained least-squares) to 0%. The method provides a computationally efficient virtual-gauge evaluation tool for quality control of planar hole groups under MMC and datum feature shift in engineering field.