h Towsyfyan - Department of Manufacturing Engineering, ArvandanNonprofit Higher Education Institute, Khorramshahr, Iran
s.a Adnani-Salehi - Department of Manufacturing Engineering, ArvandanNonprofit Higher Education Institute, Khorramshahr, Iran
m Ghayyem - Department of Manufacturing Engineering, ArvandanNonprofit Higher Education Institute, Khorramshahr, Iran
f Mosaedi - Department of Manufacturing Engineering, ArvandanNonprofit Higher Education Institute, Khorramshahr, Iran

The allocation of design tolerances between the components of a mechanical assembly and manufacturing tolerances can significantly affect the functionality of products and related productioncosts. This paper introduces Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) approach to solve the machiningtolerance allocation of an overrunning clutch assembly. ICA is a multi-agent algorithm with each agent being a country, which is either a colony or an imperialist. These countries form some empires in the search space. Movement of the colonies toward their related imperialist, and imperialistic competitionamong the empires, form the basis of the ICA. During these movements, the powerful imperialist are reinforced and the weak ones are weakened and gradually collapsed, directing the algorithm towards optimum points. The objective of present study is to obtain optimum tolerances of the individualcomponents for the minimum cost of manufacturing using ICA.The results were finally compared with the Genetic Algorithm (GA). Based on the results, ICA has demonstrated excellent capabilities such as accuracy, faster convergence and better global optimum achievement in comparison with traditional GA.

Imperialist Competitive Algorithm,Clutch Assembly