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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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NASA NTRS1990

The Design-To-Cost Manifold

Design-to-cost is a popular technique for controlling costs. Although qualitative techniques exist for implementing design to cost, quantitative methods are sparse. In the launch vehicle and spacecraft engineering process, the question whether to minimize mass is usually an issue. The lack of quantification in this issue leads to arguments on both sides. This paper presents a mathematical technique which both quantifies the design-to-cost process and the mass/complexity issue. Parametric cost analysis generates and applies mathematical formulas called cost estimating relationships. In their most common forms, they are continuous and differentiable. This property permits the application of the mathematics of differentiable manifolds. Although the terminology sounds formidable, the application of the techniques requires only a knowledge of linear algebra and ordinary differential equations, common subjects in undergraduate scientific and engineering curricula. When the cost c is expressed as a differentiable function of n system metrics, setting the cost c to be a constant generates an n-1 dimensional subspace of the space of system metrics such that any set of metric values in that space satisfies the constant design-to-cost criterion. This space is a differentiable manifold upon which all mathematical properties of a differentiable manifold may be applied. One important property is that an easily implemented system of ordinary differential equations exists which permits optimization of any function of the system metrics, mass for example, over the design-to-cost manifold. A dual set of equations defines the directions of maximum and minimum cost change. A simplified approximation of the PRICE H(TM) production-production cost is used to generate this set of differential equations over [mass, complexity] space. The equations are solved in closed form to obtain the one dimensional design-to-cost trade and design-for-cost spaces. Preliminary results indicate that cost is relatively insensitive to changes in mass and that the reduction of complexity, both in the manufacturing process and of the spacecraft, is dominant in reducing cost.

Dean, Edwin B.↗

NASA NTRS1990

The design-to-cost manifold

A mathematical technique which both quantifies the design-to-cost process and the mass/complexity issue is presented. A simplified approximation of the PRICE H production-production cost is used to generate a dual set of differential equations which define the directions of maximum and minimum cost change over (mass, complexity) space. The equations are solved in closed form to obtain the one-dimensional design-to-cost and design-for-cost spaces. Preliminary results indicate that cost is relatively insensitive to changes in mass and that the reduction of complexity, both in the manufacturing process and in the spacecraft itself, is dominant in reducing cost. Two major objections to the design-to-cost method are discussed.

Dean, Edwin B.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Techniques for Conducting Effective Concept Design and Design-to-Cost Trade Studies

Concept design plays a central role in project success as its product effectively locks the majority of system life cycle cost. Such extraordinary leverage presents a business case for conducting concept design in a credible fashion, particularly for first-of-a-kind systems that advance the state of the art and that have high design uncertainty. A key challenge, however, is to know when credible design convergence has been achieved in such systems. Using a space system example, this paper characterizes the level of convergence needed for concept design in the context of technical and programmatic resource margins available in preliminary design and highlights the importance of design and cost evaluation learning curves in determining credible convergence. It also provides techniques for selecting trade study cases that promote objective concept evaluation, help reveal unknowns, and expedite convergence within the trade space and conveys general practices for conducting effective concept design-to-cost studies.

Trade Studies↗

NASA NTRS1975

Standardization and program effect analysis (Study 2.4). Volume 3: Design-to-cost analysis

The program procedures that were incorporated into an on-going "design-to-cost" spacecraft program are examined. Program procedures are the activities that support the development and operations of the flight unit: contract management, documents, integration meetings, engineering, and testing. This report is limited to the program procedures that were implemented, with emphasis on areas that may depart from normal satellite development practices.

Shiokari, T.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Techniques for Conducting Effective Concept Design and Design-to-Cost Trade Studies

Design To Cost↗

NASA NTRS2014

Techniques for Conducting Effective Concept Design and Design-to-Cost Trade Studies

No abstract available

Design-to-Cost↗

NASA NTRS1974

Design-to-cost

Attempts made to design to costs equipment, vehicles and subsystems for various space projects are discussed. A systematic approach, based on mission requirement analysis, definition of a mission baseline design, benefit and cost analysis, and a benefit-cost analysis was proposed for implementing the cost control program.

Bradley, F. E.↗

NASA NTRS1978

A data management system for weight control and design-to-cost

The definition of the mass properties data of aircraft changed on a daily basis as do design details of the aircraft. This dynamic nature of the definition has generally encouraged those responsible for the data to update the data on a weekly or monthly basis. The by-product of these infrequent updates was the requirement of manual records to maintain daily activity. The development of WAVES changed the approach to management of mass properties data. WAVES has given the ability to update the data on a daily basis thereby eliminating the need for manual records. WAVES has demonstrated that a software product can support a data management system for engineering data.

Bryant, J. C.↗

NASA NTRS1977

Automated array assembly task, phase 1

An assessment of state-of-the-art technologies that are applicable to silicon solar cell and solar cell module fabrication is provided. The assessment consists of a technical feasibility evaluation and a cost projection for high-volume production of silicon solar cell modules. The cost projection was approached from two directions; a design-to-cost analysis assigned cost goals to each major process element in the fabrication scheme, and a cost analysis built up projected costs for alternate technologies for each process element. A technical evaluation was used in combination with the cost analysis to identify a baseline low cost process. A novel approach to metal pattern design based on minimum power loss was developed. These design equations were used as a tool in the evaluation of metallization technologies.

Carbajal, B. G.↗

NASA NTRS1976

Aircraft concepts for service to small communities

Small communities are served by trunk, local-service, and commuter carriers having a wide variety in route structure, type of service, and economic character, operating over stage lengths less than 400 statute miles. NASA studies have investigated various aircraft concepts for short-haul that have potential in this market area. Aircraft concepts for this market require a careful balancing of performance, technology, and design-to-cost considerations. This paper summarizes some results of recent NASA sponsored air transportation system studies applicable to small community arenas.

Galloway, T. L.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Contractor and government - Teamwork and commitment

Procedures being implemented at NASA to improve cooperation with contractors and increase productivity are reviewed from the NASA point of view. The goals of the U.S. space program for the coming 25 years are listed, and the importance of the commercial utilization of space in these plans is stressed. Consideration is given to the ongoing American Productivity Center White-Collar Productivity-Improvement Project, the implementation of the recommendations of the 1984 NASA/Contractor Conferences in present and future contracts, and the use of incentive contracts to create situations in which both NASA and the contractor benefit from increased productivity. Future plans call for increased industry responsibility in managing and operating the STS; steamlining of Shuttle operations; advanced design-to-cost procedures, increased commonality, better NASA-contractor communications, and more use of CAD/CAM and robotics for the Space Station; and accommodation of greatly expanded private investment and exploitation of space.

Griffin, G. D.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Initiation of the next step - The acquisition of a Space Station Program

Attention is given to NASA's Space Station Program acquisition strategy, as well as the internal implementation of the strategy and the nature of NASA's relations with industry. While the acquisition strategy addresses phased procurement, design-to-cost, and advanced development emphasis, internal implementation concerns itself with 'skunk works' activities and the exploitation of the Technical and Management Information System. NASA's relationship to contractors will stress competition, extensive commercial and international involvement, and design/development phase competition flexibility.

Mancuso, T. G.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Mars Observer spacecraft description

The Mars Observer spacecraft implements the science and mission objectives for a planetary observer program with a design baseline evolving from existing, proven, flight subsystem designs and production techniques. The spacecraft conforms to a set of high-level functional requirements, allowing a development process with a high degree of flexibility in meeting performance, mission, and science requirements. The intent of the implementation approach is to procure a design-to-cost, reliable, production-type spacecraft that can accommodate the complement of science instruments and meet mission requirements with adequate margins.

Potts, Dennis L.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Lessons learned for composite structures

Lessons learned for composite structures are presented in three technology areas: materials, manufacturing, and design. In addition, future challenges for composite structures are presented. Composite materials have long gestation periods from the developmental stage to fully matured production status. Many examples exist of unsuccessful attempts to accelerate this gestation period. Experience has shown that technology transition of a new material system to fully matured production status is time consuming, involves risk, is expensive and should not be undertaken lightly. The future challenges for composite materials require an intensification of the science based approach to material development, extension of the vendor/customer interaction process to include all engineering disciplines of the end user, reduced material costs because they are a significant factor in overall part cost, and improved batch-to-batch pre-preg physical property control. Historical manufacturing lessons learned are presented using current in-service production structure as examples. Most producibility problems for these structures can be traced to their sequential engineering design. This caused an excessive emphasis on design-to-weight and schedule at the expense of design-to-cost. This resulted in expensive performance originated designs, which required costly tooling and led to non-producible parts. Historically these problems have been allowed to persist throughout the production run. The current/future approach for the production of affordable composite structures mandates concurrent engineering design where equal emphasis is placed on product and process design. Design for simplified assembly is also emphasized, since assembly costs account for a major portion of total airframe costs. The future challenge for composite manufacturing is, therefore, to utilize concurrent engineering in conjunction with automated manufacturing techniques to build affordable composite structures. Composite design experience has shown that significant weight savings have been achieved, outstanding fatigue and corrosion resistance have been demonstrated, and in-service performance has been very successful. Currently no structural design show stoppers exist for composite structures. A major lesson learned is that the full scale static test is the key test for composites, since it is the primary structural 'hot spot' indicator. The major durability issue is supportability of thin skinned structure. Impact damage has been identified as the most significant issue for the damage tolerance control of composite structures. However, delaminations induced during assembly operations have demonstrated a significant nuisance value. The future challenges for composite structures are threefold. Firstly, composite airframe weight fraction should increase to 60 percent. At the same time, the cost of composite structures must be reduced by 50 percent to attain the goal of affordability. To support these challenges it is essential to develop lower cost materials and processes.

Whitehead, R. S.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Designing for cost

Parametric cost analysis is presently defined as the generation and application of equations to cost analysis; equations defining cost as a function of system-design parameters, performance parameters, or engineering process parameters, constitute a valuable tool for design-to-cost efforts. Cost sensitivity is expressed through the partial derivatives of these functions, furnishing insight into the magnitude and direction of cost change for given parameter changes. The robust design method thus obtained is a systematic and efficient approach for determining the near-optimum set of design parameters for cost, which highlights important factors affecting operation and performance as well as cost.

Dean, Edwin B.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Workshop on advanced technologies for planetary instruments

NASA's robotic solar system exploration program requires a new generation of science instruments. Design concepts are now judged against stringent mass, power, and size constraints--yet future instruments must be highly capable, reliable, and, in some applications, they must operate for many years. The most important single constraint, however, is cost: new instruments must be developed in a tightly controlled design-to-cost environment. Technical innovation is the key to success and will enable the sophisticated measurements needed for future scientific exploration. As a fundamental benefit, the incorporation of breakthrough technologies in planetary flight hardware will contribute to U.S. industrial competitiveness and will strengthen the U.S. technology base. The Workshop on Advanced Technologies for Planetary Instruments was conceived to address these challenges, to provide an open forum in which the NASA and DoD space communities could become better acquainted at the working level, and to assess future collaborative efforts. Over 300 space scientists and engineers participated in the two-and-a-half-day meeting held April 28-30, 1993, in Fairfax, Virginia. It was jointly sponsored by NASA's Solar System Exploration Division (SSED), within the Office of Space Science (OSS); NASA's Office of Advanced Concepts and Technology (OACT); DoD's Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO), now called the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO); and the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI). The meeting included invited oral and contributed poster presentations, working group sessions in four sub-disciplines, and a wrap-up panel discussion. On the first day, the planetary science community described instrumentation needed for missions that may go into development during the next 5 to 10 years. Most of the second day was set aside for the DoD community to inform their counterparts in planetary science about their interests and capabilities, and to describe the BMDO technology base, flight programs, and future directions. The working group sessions and the panel discussion synthesized technical and programmatic issues from all the presentations, with a specific goal of assessing the applicability of BMDO technologies to science instrumentation for planetary exploration.

Appleby, J.↗

NASA NTRS1994

A manufacturing database of advanced materials used in spacecraft structures

Cost savings opportunities over the life cycle of a product are highest in the early exploratory phase when different design alternatives are evaluated not only for their performance characteristics but also their methods of fabrication which really control the ultimate manufacturing costs of the product. In the past, Design-To-Cost methodologies for spacecraft design concentrated on the sizing and weight issues more than anything else at the early so-called 'Vehicle Level' (Ref: DOD/NASA Advanced Composites Design Guide). Given the impact of manufacturing cost, the objective of this study is to identify the principal cost drivers for each materials technology and propose a quantitative approach to incorporating these cost drivers into the family of optimization tools used by the Vehicle Analysis Branch of NASA LaRC to assess various conceptual vehicle designs. The advanced materials being considered include aluminum-lithium alloys, thermoplastic graphite-polyether etherketone composites, graphite-bismaleimide composites, graphite- polyimide composites, and carbon-carbon composites. Two conventional materials are added to the study to serve as baseline materials against which the other materials are compared. These two conventional materials are aircraft aluminum alloys series 2000 and series 7000, and graphite-epoxy composites T-300/934. The following information is available in the database. For each material type, the mechanical, physical, thermal, and environmental properties are first listed. Next the principal manufacturing processes are described. Whenever possible, guidelines for optimum processing conditions for specific applications are provided. Finally, six categories of cost drivers are discussed. They include, design features affecting processing, tooling, materials, fabrication, joining/assembly, and quality assurance issues. It should be emphasized that this database is not an exhaustive database. Its primary use is to make the vehicle designer aware of some of the most important aspects of manufacturing associated with his/her choice of the structural materials. The other objective of this study is to propose a quantitative method to determine a Manufacturing Complexity Factor (MCF) for each material being contemplated. This MCF is derived on the basis of the six cost drivers mentioned above plus a Technology Readiness Factor which is very closely related to the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) as defined in the Access To Space final report. Short of any manufacturing information, our MCF is equivalent to the inverse of TRL. As more manufacturing information is available, our MCF is a better representation (than TRL) of the fabrication processes involved. The most likely application for MCF is in cost modeling for trade studies. On-going work is being pursued to expand the potential applications of MCF.

Bao, Han P.↗

NASA NTRS2008

A Holistic Approach to Systems Development

Introduces a Holistic and Iterative Design Process. Continuous process but can be loosely divided into four stages. More effort spent early on in the design. Human-centered and Multidisciplinary. Emphasis on Life-Cycle Cost. Extensive use of modeling, simulation, mockups, human subjects, and proven technologies. Human-centered design doesn t mean the human factors discipline is the most important Disciplines should be involved in the design: Subsystem vendors, configuration management, operations research, manufacturing engineering, simulation/modeling, cost engineering, hardware engineering, software engineering, test and evaluation, human factors, electromagnetic compatibility, integrated logistics support, reliability/maintainability/availability, safety engineering, test equipment, training systems, design-to-cost, life cycle cost, application engineering etc. 9

Wong, Douglas T.↗