Critical operating conditions on assemblies with parameter-dependent dimensions

over a specified range of operating parameters (e.g. temperature, pressure and speed). These can influence part dimensions due to physical effects such as thermal expansion, deformation and wear. When these influences are added to manufacturing errors, unacceptable values of functional requirements can occur under critical conditions on operating parameters. To avoid that, a designer should be able to readily evaluate the operating window allowed to the assembly by a given set of tolerance specifications. A method is proposed to help this task on the assumption that requirements are verified through worst-case linear chains of dimensional tolerances.