Life cycle cost modelling as an aircraft design decision support tool

This report summarizes the work that has been carried out as part of the FLAVIIR project, a 5 year research program looking at technologies for future unmanned air vehicles. A novel classication of aircraft product defnition is utilised and a framework to estimate the life cycle cost of aircraft using the product definition is presented. The architecture to estimate the life cycle cost and the associated models are described.The acquisition costsare estimated using a hierarchical structure and a discrete simulation model is used to estimate the maintenance and operation costs. The acquisition cost model uses an object oriented approach with libraries of materials and processes integrated into the cost model. Risk analysis is performed to identify the important design parameters and uncertainty in themodel. The acquisition cost model developed has the capability to estimate the costs of aircraft structures manufactured using metal-based materials as well as non-metal-based materials.The discrete event simulation model estimates the operation and maintenance costs of a fleet of aircraft using the mission characteristics, aircraftperformance and the logistics data as input. The aircraft performance parameters are calculated by using aerodynamic analysis along with performanceanalysis models and the simulation model utilises a novel methodology to link aircraft performance with survivability analysis for estimating the maintenance costs.A framework is presented in which the cost models developed can beintegrated into the conceptual design process to facilitate the comparison between different configurations. The usage of the life cycle cost framework as a decision support tool is outlined and three case studies are presented which include composites vs metals trade-off analysis, optimisation studies and web deployment for real time cost estimation. The novel contributionsof this research are outlined and interesting avenues for future research that can be pursued are identified.