A SPREADSHEET APPROACH TO MINIMUM-COST TOLERANCING FOR ROCKET ENGINES

A minimum cost tolerance allocation method for non-linear systems was developed and demonstrated on a NASA rocket engine design. The method required developing a cost aggregation approach to allocate costs to tolerances. The approach is based on component element cost estimates, manufacturing difficulty curves, and functional gains matrices between system, component, and element parameters. The method is amenable to successive smaller level decomposition. It's greatest benefit is likely to be gained within a concurrent engineering environment from the insights engineers will obtain into the cost-functionality relationships between components and from the information required to use the method.