Question

Why is the unilateral system of gage-tolerance allocation preferred over bilateral system?

Answer 1

Because the unilateral system is easier to get as close to the dimension the engineer specified.

Bilateral tolerancing (also known as symmetric tolerancing) is a method of tolerancing a dimension using equal plus and minus deviations from the nominal dimension.

Unilateral tolerances (also known as asymmetric tolerances) on the other hand specify a deviation in only one direction, either plus or minus, from the specified nominal dimension. Unilateral tolerances may also take the form of plus and plus-plus, minus and minus-minus, or plus or minus some amount and plus or minus a lesser amount.