COST TIME ANALYSIS FOR THEORETICAL AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION/

With the growing emphasis on affordability in aerospace systems design for future aircraft, there is a need for new techniques to predict ac curate system and life cycle costs (LCCs). The prediction methods must be capable of quantifying cost differences resulting from material an d manufacturing process alternatives. Existing cost models are primari ly weight based. While these models have been used successfully for pr edicting the costs of conventional aircraft, they are not sufficient f or many modern or future aircraft that are produced using advanced man ufacturing processes and materials. A high-fidelity production cost mo del was developed and presented that accepts data from multiple levels of product design analysis. The use of cost/time analysis (CTA) for a ircraft production is demonstrated for the evaluation of production al ternatives. The production-cost model and CTA techniques are included in a LCC simulation. Numerical results are presented for a CTA evaluat ion of advanced wing structural concepts for a supersonic transport.