Research on assembly clearance of precision spherical coupling parts by point cloud analysis

Assembly clearance has a great influence on the performance of precision parts. Improper assembly clearance affects the working state and induces failure of parts. A method to analyze the assembly clearance of the precision spherical coupling parts by analyzing the points cloud was proposed. The least square center was used to find a rough center. Accurate center was searched near the least square center by the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm based on the minimum zone method. Radical clearance and Z clearance of precision spherical coupling parts were calculated. Furthermore, the dynamic change of assembly clearance was also calculated by rotating the parts. The sphericity error evaluation results were improved obviously compared with other results. The accuracy of the evaluation results improved 4.51% 1/428.97%.