Military Airframe Costs. The Effects of Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Processes

Abstract

Good cost estimates can make important contributions to effective acquisition policy. RAND has a long history of producing cost-estimating methodologies. Two of its more recent studies are Hess and Romanoff (1987) and Resetar, Rogers, and Hess (1991). This report both updates and extends these earlier studies, focusing on the effects of material mix, manufacturing technique, and part geometric complexity on cost. We collected two types of information on these effects. First, we surveyed the military airframe industry for estimates of how aircraft production costs vary with airframe structure material mix. Second, we analyzed a large set of actual part data from recent aircraft manufacturing efforts that we collected from industry. We also estimated a set of airframe relationships (CERs) for labor hours based on MACDAR, a historical airframe database. We then integrated the effects of material mix into these estimates.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2001
Accession Number
ADA396701

Entities

People

  • John C. Graser
  • Michael Kennedy
  • Obaid Younossi

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Biomedical
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircraft Industry
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Composite Material Fabrication
  • Composite Materials
  • Construction
  • Failure Mode And Effect Analysis
  • Fighter Aircraft
  • Manufacturing
  • Material Degradation Processes
  • Materials Laboratories
  • Materials Processing
  • Materials Science
  • Materials Testing
  • Mechanics
  • Test And Evaluation

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Life Cycle Cost Analysis