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Parallelism: Special Note

Parallelism can control either the parallelism between two surfaces or the parallelism of a part's central axis to a datum. Surface parallelism controls two parallel planes acting as the tolerance zone, while axis parallelism controls a cylinder around a theoretical perfectly parallel axis. Parallelism is commonly called out as controlling the parallelism between two surfaces, but it can also reference an axis, which is controlled differently. Parallelism creates an envelope for the referenced feature to lie within relative to the datum to indirectly control their parallel orientation.

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171 views2 pages

Parallelism: Special Note

Parallelism can control either the parallelism between two surfaces or the parallelism of a part's central axis to a datum. Surface parallelism controls two parallel planes acting as the tolerance zone, while axis parallelism controls a cylinder around a theoretical perfectly parallel axis. Parallelism is commonly called out as controlling the parallelism between two surfaces, but it can also reference an axis, which is controlled differently. Parallelism creates an envelope for the referenced feature to lie within relative to the datum to indirectly control their parallel orientation.

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anish
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Parallelism

Special Note:
Parallelism actually has two different functions in GD&T depending which reference
feature is called out. The normal form or Surface Parallelism is a tolerance that
controls parallelism between two surfaces or features. The surface form is controlled
similar to flatness with two parallel planes acting as its tolerance zone. Axis
Parallelism is a tolerance that controls how parallel a specific parts central axis needs
to be to a datum plane or axis. The axis form is controlled by a cylinder around a
theoretical perfectly parallel axis. Parallelism is most commonly called out as
surface parallelism. However, be sure to pay attention if it is referencing a central
axis because it is different! We will only discuss surface parallelism on this page but
be sure to check out our page on Perpendicularity to see how an axis is controlled with
GD&T.

GD&T Symbol: 
Relative to Datum: Yes
MMC or LMC applicable: Yes
GD&T Drawing Callout:
Description:
Parallelism is a fairly common symbol that describes a parallel orientation of one
referenced feature to a datum surface or line. It can reference a 2D line referenced to
another element, but more commonly it relates the orientation of one surface plane
parallel to another datum plane in a 3-Dimensional tolerance zone. The tolerance
indirectly controls the 0° angle between the parts by controlling where the surface can
lie based on the datum. See the tolerance zone below for more details.

Note: Parallelism does not control the angle of the referenced feature, but only creates
an envelope in which the feature must lie.

It is important to determine what the reference feature is (surface or axis) and then what
is acting as the datum (surface or axis) to determine how the parallelism is to be
controlled.

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