Nonlinear tolerancing through high fidelity variation simulation of deformable parts under frictional contact

Journal article, 2026

Friction at contact interface strongly influences deformable assembly variation, yet most nonrigid variation simulation tolerancing workflows still assume frictionless contact. This paper presents a novel nonlinear variation simulation and unilateral contact considering Coulomb friction solved as a second order cone program, enabling nonlinear tolerancing with practical computational cost. The method is demonstrated on an industrial assembly with perturbed geometries. Compared to a frictionless baseline, the proposed model captures stick and slip effects and yields lower tangential slip and reduced variation across defined contact zones. The results highlight the necessity of frictional contact modeling for tolerance analysis in assemblies.