Design of a Gauge | Metrology

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Properties of Gauge Material:

The material for limit gauges should meet most of the following requirements:

(i) Optimal Hardness:

This is primary and most important property of gauge material. It is concerned with high
durability, resistance to wear, and resistance to damage in use.

(ii) Stability of Dimensions:

The material should have high stability of dimensions to preserve size and form.

(iii) Proper Workability:

Proper workability, especially in manufacturing processes like grinding and polishing, to

obtain required accuracy.

(iv) Wear and Corrosion Resistance:

The material should have high resistance to mechanical wear and corrosion.

(v) Low Coefficient of Linear Expansion:

The material should have low coefficient of linear expansion to avoid temperature and
heating effect.

(vi) Uniformity of Structure:

The structure of gauge material should be uniform for better accuracy.

Types of Gauge Materials:

There are different gauge materials available and selection depends upon number of
factors like, cost of material, degree of accuracy required, life and durability of gauge,
types of production runs etc.

Some materials are discussed here:

(i) High carbon alloy steel is the commonly used gauge material because of their
relatively high hardness and wear resistance.

(ii) Croine plated alloy steel is used for mass production runs. The durability of these
gauges is’ 10 to 12 times than that of without crome plated high carbon alloy steel
gauges. One advantage of crome plated gauging members is that when excessive wear
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had taken place the cost of replacement of worn out part is small.

(iii) For economy, only the parts subjected to wear are made of hardened alloy steel and
handles are made of cheaper mild steel.

(iv) For high degree of accuracy, mass production, excessive wear condition, in bigger
size gauges, the whole body is made of mild steel and contact surface are deposited with
a layer of hard materials like, cemented carbides, tungsten carbide Stellite etc.

Design Consideration of Limit Gauges:

(i) Design of a gauge should be such that minimum time is taken to position, engage and
disengage a gauge.

(ii) A pilot is provided at the nose of the plug gauge for speed up of operation.

(iii) A Gauge should be light as possible and should not be the source of fatigue to the
user.

(iv) A Gauge designed for blind holes should be provided with relief air grooves for easy
escape of trapped air.

(v) A Gauge should have dimensional stability during use. It does not affected with
temperature and environmental conditions.

(vi) A Gauge should be wear resistance either by case hardening or by using crome layers
at contact surfaces.

(vii) A Gauge should be designed for overall low cost, with all the required properties.

Taylor’s Principle of Gauge Design:

The Taylor’s Principle of gauge design gives two statements which are discussed
here:

Statement 1:

The “Go” gauge should always be so designed that it will cover the maximum metal
condition (MMC), whereas a “NOT-GO” gauge will cover the minimum (least) metal
condition (LMC) of a feature, whether external or internal.

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Statement 2:

The “Go” gauge should always be so designed that it will cover as many dimensions as
possible in a single operation, whereas the “NOT-GO” gauge will cover only one
dimension.

Means a Go plug gauge should have a full circular section and be of full length of
the hole being checked as in shown figure 1.62:

According to the first statements let us take examples of a bearing (hole) and a shaft
whose dimensions are to be controlled.

Example 1: For Bearing (Hole):

ADVERTISEMENTS:

High limit of hole = 38.70 mm tow limit of hole = 38.00 mm

Maximum Metal Limit of hole (Low limit of hole) = 38.00 mm “Go” gauge dimension
become = 38.00 mm Minimum Metal Limit of hole (high limit of hole) = 38.70 mm “Not -
Go” gauge dimension become = 38.70 mm

For the bearing (hole) to be within 38.00Sqq mm the Go-gauge should enter and NOT-GO
gauge should refuse to enter. If the GO-gauge does not enter, the hole is smaller in
dimension and if the NOT-GO gauge also goes in the hole, then the hole is bigger in
dimension.
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Example 2: For a shaft:

Maximum Metal and Limit of shaft (high limit of shaft) = 37.98 mm “GO” gauge dimension
become = 37.98mm Minimum Metal Limit of shaft (low limit of shaft) = 37.96 mm “NOT-
GO” gauge dimension become = 37.96mm.

For the shaft to be within mm the Go-gauge should slide over and NOT-GO
gauge should not slide over the shaft. Is the GO-gauge does not go (slide) then the shaft
is bigger in dimension and if NOT-GO gauge slide over the shaft, then the shaft size is
smaller in dimension.

According to the second statement, Let us take an example of checking of a bush

(hole), as shown in Fig. 1.63:

Example 3:

If a short length Go-plug gauge is employed

to check the curved bush, it will pass
through all the curves of the bend busing.
This will lead to wrong selection of curved
bush.

On the other hand, a GO-plug gauge of

adequate length will not pass through a
bent or curved bush. This eliminates the
wrong selection. The length of NOT-GO
gauge is kept smaller than GO-gauge.

Significance of Taylor’s Principle:

The significance of Taylor’s principle of gauge design for:

(i) Circular holes,

(ii) Circular shafts,

(iii) Non-circular holes and shafts.

(i) Circular Holes:

According to the Taylor’s principle, the Go gauge would be plug gauge having a minimum
length equal to the length of the hole or the length of the engagement of the associated
part, whichever is smaller.

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The NOT-GO gauge would be a pin gauge which could check the upper limit of hole
(minimum metal condition) across any diameter at any position along the length of the
hole.

A little consideration will show that turning the NOT-GO pin gauge about the axis of the
hole will show any defect of geometry if any. As it may accept the oval hole along one
axis but will reject it along another axis.

This NOT-GO pin gauge is able to reject the non-circular (oval) hole, as shown in
Fig. 1.64:

(ii) Circular Shafts:

According to the Taylor’s principle,

the GO gauge would be a ring gauge
having a minimum length equal to
the length of the shaft or the length
of the engagement of the associated
part, whichever is smaller.

The NOT-GO gauge would be in the

form of snap gauge or Gap Gauge,
so that it is able to reject the non-
circular shaft as shown in Fig. 1.65:

(iii) Non-Circular Holes and Shafts:

According to the Taylor’s principle (for

checking non-circular holes and shafts)
the GO-Gauge would be of course be of
full form, corresponding to maximum
metal condition of the part.

On the other hand a separate NOT-

GO Gauge is used for each dimension,
corresponding to the minimum metal
condition of the part as shown in Fig.
1.66:

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Limit Gauge Tolerance:
Limit Gauges, like any job, require a manufacturing tolerance, and the theoretically
gauge size is determined by the lalylor’s principle of gauge design.

Logically the manufacturing tolerance (gauge tolerance) should be kept as small as

possible, so that a large proportion of the work tolerance is still available for
manufacturing a component. However, this increases the gauge cost.

There is no universally accepted rule for the amount of gauge tolerance, but is decided
on the basis of the work tolerance.

However, the 10% rule is applied to find the amount of gauge tolerance. According to this
rule; limit gauges are made 10 times more accurate than the tolerance they are
supposed to control. Means, the tolerance on each gauge whether GO or NOT-Go is 1/10
of the work tolerance. For example, if the work tolerance is 100 units, then the
manufacturing gauge tolerance will become 10 units.

The gauges having gauge tolerance 10% of work tolerance is known as ‘ Working gauges’
and are used by the operator to control dimensions at shop-floor.

‘Inspection gauges’ has gauge tolerance only 5% of the work tolerance. ‘Master gauges’
has gauge tolerance 10% of the working gauge tolerance.

Allocation of Gauge Tolerance:

Two basic systems are used to allocation of gauge tolerance round the nominal size.

These are discussed below:

(i) Unilateral System:

In unilateral system, the gauge tolerance zone lies entirely with in the work tolerance
zone as shown in Fig. 1.67. Due to this work tolerance zone available is only 80%. This
system is mostly used in industries. This system ensures that every accepted component

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will be lies within the work tolerance zone.

Example 4:

Therefore,

High limit of bearing = 30.02 mm

Low limit of bearing = 29.98 mm

Total work tolerance = 0.04 mm

(ii) Bilateral System:

In bilateral system, the gauge tolerance zones are bisected by the work tolerance zone,
as shown in Fig. 1.67. The disadvantages of this system is that, components which are
within working limits can be rejected and parts which are outside the working limits can
be accepted. But the percentage of such components is less.

In Example above:

Wear Allowance:
The measuring surfaces of gauges, although hardned and lapped, but they wear out with
the time they are in use. ‘GO’-gauge wears out more than ‘NOT-GO’ gauge, because GO-
gauge rubs against the surface to be gauged, when go inside a hole. In this condition they
lose their initial size and become non-useful.

Therefore, to overcome this difficulty, a special allowance of metal, known as wear

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allowance is added to the nominal diameter of a plug gauge and subtracted from that of
a ring gauge. Wear allowance is applied to the nominal gauge diameter before gauge
tolerance is applied.

The wear allowance must be kept as small as possible. Wear allowance is usually taken
as 5% of work tolerance. This wear allowance is generally applied to only “GO-gauge”.

In above example (In unilateral system):

Wear allowance = 5% of work allowance = 0.002 mm

Nominal size of Go-plug-gauge = 29.98 + 0.002 = 29.982 mm

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