Wind Tunnel and Propulsion Test Facilities: Supporting Analyses to an Assessment of NASA's Capabilities to Serve National Needs

by Philip S. Anton

Overview

Provides detailed analyses of the nation's aeronautic testing needs and the effectiveness of and management issues for, NASA's major wind tunnel and test propulsion facilities in serving those needs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780833036421
Publisher:	RAND Corporation
Publication date:	03/01/2005
Pages:	82
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.02(h) x 0.47(d)

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Wind Tunnel and Propulsion Test Facilities

Supporting Analyses to an Assessment of NASA's Capabilities to Serve National Needs

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By Philip S. Antón Dana J. Johnson Michael Block Michael Scott Brown Jeffrey A. Drezner James Dryden Eugene C. Gritton Tom Hamilton Thor Hogan Richard Mesic Deborah Peetz Raj Raman Paul Steinberg Joe Strong William P. G. Trimble

RAND Corporation

Copyright © 2004 RAND Corporation
All right reserved.

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Chapter One

Introduction

This technical report provides detailed data, observations, and conclusions from a one-year study examining the nation's wind tunnel and propulsion testing needs and the continuing place that NASA's major wind tunnel (WT) and propulsion test (PT) facilities have in serving those needs, identifying new investments needed and any excess capacities. The study focused on the needs for large (and thus more expensive to operate) test facilities and identified management issues facing NASA's WT/PT facilities.

The details in this report support the major policy observations, conclusions, and recommendations contained in the companion monograph of the study (Antón et al., 2004[MG]).

Approach

Intensive and extensive interviews were conducted with personnel from NASA headquarters; NASA research centers at Ames (Moffett Field, Calif.), Glenn (Cleveland, Ohio), and Langley (Hampton, Va.), which own and manage NASA's WT/PT facilities; the staff of the Department of Defense's (DoD's) WT/PT facilities at the U.S. Air Force's ArnoldEngineering and Development Center (AEDC, at Arnold AFB, Tenn.); selected domestic and foreign test facility owners and operators; U.S. government and service project officers with aeronautic programs; and officials in a number of leading aerospace companies with commercial, military, and space access interests and products.

We employed three semistructured interview protocols to provide advanced notice of the study needs and a level of consistency across the interviews. First, we used an interview protocol for our initial on-site visits and discussions with NASA programs, facility managers, and DoD users. Second, we developed a questionnaire to solicit projected utilization of NASA facilities. Finally, we used detailed supplementary questionnaires to solicit additional insights from aerospace vehicle designers in industry and the DoD their strategic needs in each of the six WT/PT facility categories, to probe their preferred facilities and acceptable or possible alternatives, the bases being used for facility selections (technical, business environment, etc.), their needs for new facilities, and their assessments of computational fluid dynamics' (CFD's) role in reducing WT/PT facility requirements.

In addition to the work of the RAND Corporation's resident research staff, the study employed a number of distinguished senior advisers and consultants to help analyze the data received and to augment the information based on their own expertise with various national and international facilities.

In addition, the analysis reviewed and benefited from numerous related studies conducted over the past several years.

Perspectives on the Approach

The analytic method used in the study to define needs does not rely on an explicit national strategy document for aeronautics in general and for WT/PT facilities in particular because it does not exist. Lacking such an explicit needs document, we examined what categories of aeronautic vehicles the United States is currently pursuing, plans to pursue, and will likely pursue based on strategic objectives and current vehicles in use. In some cases, no explicit vehicle planning exists, but the study assessed current uses and determined that future vehicles will need to be produced. For example, we assumed that the country will continue to need commercial and military rotorcraft and military bomber vehicles despite the lack of a strategic document on committing the resources of the country to their research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E).

Despite the existence of planning documents that discuss future vehicles, none of them explicitly talk about WT/PT facilities. Thus, this study used the vehicle categories as the basis for an examination of test facility capabilities needed for RDT&E of those vehicles. This analysis examined engineering design principles as evidenced by expert analysis, advocacy, and survey responses from the research and design communities. Thus, national needs for WT/PT facilities are traced back to the vehicles that they enable. If strategic decisions are made in the future that result in these vehicles being no longer needed, then the results of this study can be used to understand which facilities are not needed. For example, if the DoD and commercial sectors decide that rotorcraft are no longer important, then the WT/PT facility needs that support rotorcraft RDT&E can be eliminated. However, lacking an explicit strategic policy decision that says the country will no longer pursue rotorcraft, this study included these needs in the analysis and conclusions. This study does not dictate what vehicles the country should produce; it merely maps what WT/PT facilities the country needs based on the vehicles in evidence that the country is pursuing and apparently will still need based on a review of existing planning documents and strategic positions.

Note also that as enabling infrastructures, WT/PT facility operations are not funded by specific line items in the NASA budget, requiring explicit congressional policy directives regarding facility needs. The study's determination of WT/PT facility needs and the resulting conclusions and recommendations are therefore not based on the federal budget process as a direct indicator of policy dictates of facility need. Because WT/PT facilities are enabling infrastructure for vehicle categories that enter such policy debates, the study focused on those vehicle categories and the pursuits of such vehicles as the bases of engineering analysis. Policies will dictate specific vehicle productions over time in the future; this study addresses which test facility capabilities will enable the United States to produce such vehicles when such policies arise.

Moreover, the study viewed NASA and Congress's request for an assessment of WT/PT facility needs as an opportunity to inform budget decisions rather than as a dictate to explain facility needs as evidenced by current policy budgetary decisions.

The analytic method used in this study defines the specific test facility needs identified in the areas of national security, research, development, production, and sustainment as those required to enable the prudent research, design, and testing of vehicles classes of interest to the United States. WT/PT facility needs were determined by engineering principles to research new aeronautic concepts, explore and select new designs, and validate performance. In the approach, the aeronautic experts who were consulted applied their best judgment on what testing capabilities and facilities are required given current engineering needs, alternative approaches, and engineering cost/benefit trade-offs. These descriptions of needs reflected current and anticipated approximations that are being explored and used to keep WT/PT facility testing to a minimum, but they do not necessarily reflect short-term budgetary pressures within programs. They are the best judgments of the engineering community as to what is needed strategically to produce the next generation of aerospace vehicles in all classes.

This method, of course, can lead to a bias in the findings because the assessments may be overly reflective of what the engineering field determines is important rather than what specific program managers are willing to spend on testing as a result of program budget constraints. For example, the study findings point to a disconnect between current funding and prudent engineering need. Future utilization levels may not reflect the engineering assessments if future disconnects remain. Also, the study found that, in certain places, under-funding of programs has driven those programs to use facilities that are not appropriate to meet their needs but are shortfalls or insufficient compromises rather than prudent capability choices in a market.

The disconnect may also indicate that the commercial and federal budget processes are out of step with the full cost associated with the research and design stages of a particular vehicle class. If, in the extreme case, this process reaches the point in which the federal government decides it can no longer afford to pursue entire vehicle classes both now and in the long term, the results of this study can be used to indicate which WT/PT facilities are therefore no longer needed.

Scope of the Study

While the study focus was on national needs and NASA's WT/PT facility infrastructure, national needs are not dictated or met solely by the agency's test infrastructure; DoD, U.S. industry, and foreign facilities also serve many national needs. Therefore, the study analyzed potential consolidation opportunities within NASA's test facility infrastructure and technical considerations for key non-NASA facilities that might alternatively serve national needs. RAND collected data on and analyzed selected DoD and foreign WT/PT facilities to understand the breadth, depth, and quality of these facilities that are similar to NASA's and to develop a base of knowledge for addressing the competitive need for revitalizing existing NASA facilities. However, the study was not chartered or resourced to examine the sets of data for these alternative facilities to fully understand consolidation opportunities between NASA and non-NASA WT/PT facility infrastructures. Such a broader study, however, is important and warranted based on our findings.

WT/PT Facility Management Issues

This rest of this chapter provides supporting details on management issues in the study discussed in the monograph:

the effects of NASA's center-centric organization of WT/PT facility support

the effects of low utilization on facility financial status

the financing of facility operations

the need for periodic reviews of facility health

additional cost/benefit perspectives.

The Effects of NASA's Center-Centric Organization on WT/PT Facility Support

NASA WT/PT facilities have historically been viewed as research and development (R&D) tools in support of research programs in the local NASA research center as well as national resources for RDT&E for users outside the local community. Management of those facilities has been center-centric, with support coming from the center and primarily managed with the center's needs in mind. Support from the center director and research program relationships have therefore been critical to the health and success of local test facilities. It is useful to briefly review how the three primary NASA centers with WT/PT facilities are structured and what that organization has meant for these facilities.

In recent years, Ames's mission has emphasized information technology as the centerpiece of its implementation strategy while retaining aerodynamics as one of its goals in that strategy. Thus, the test facilities at Ames are not in line with the center's primary emphasis. While aeronautics remains in Ames's vision and mission statements, the center management plans to eliminate center funding support for WT/PT facilities. As a result (and with the near elimination of local research programs at Ames), the WT/PT complex at Ames has had to focus on external test and evaluation (T&E) customers to augment its dwindling internal program customer base (see more detailed utilization data in Chapters Three through Eight).

In contrast, Langley and Glenn remain dominated by their centers' missions of aerodynamics and propulsion, respectively. Langley and Glenn have continued to staff and operate their test facilities primarily in support of aeronautics R&D. This is not a trivial difference. R&D facilities focus on flexible access, allowing more time on point to collect and observe data and providing knowledgeable research staff in support of testers. T&E facilities focus on quality and productivity, working to get customers in and out quickly while running through and processing their large sets of preplanned data points (called "polars") as efficiently as possible. Often, T&E facilities do not have large research or support staff on hand, since users bring their own team and mostly need the facility operated for them. While this may be an oversimplification of the differences, it does highlight the general differences between how facilities are managed and the general user community they serve. In contrast, some R&D facilities can often be operated or reconfigured to satisfy T&E requirements, and vice versa. The facilities do not know the difference. Equipment upgrades (e.g., in data processing or model control) can change the tenor of a facility's capabilities and the uses for which it is most appropriate.

The Effects of Current Low Utilization on Facility Financial Status

Table 1.1 outlines the fundamental implications of current usage and competitiveness on NASA's facilities. Generally, low utilization results in a low-income stream and thus the need to identify shared financial support for the facility. Weakly competitive facilities are generally candidates for upgrade or consolidation.

Despite their importance, many of NASA's important facilities are unhealthy and require the immediate attention of the agency's leadership. Notwithstanding some technical competitive issues discussed earlier, the most pressing health concern facing NASA facilities is the unreliable and dwindling funding stream to keep these facilities open and well maintained, especially in periods of low utilization.

Periodic Reviews of Facility Health

In addition to periodically evaluating national strategic needs, NASA should consider Institutionalizing a periodic review of facility health to ensure that it ties upgrades and maintenance to those strategic needs. As we have noted, the process is undeniably fraught with uncertainty and unpredictability, but the pulses across the user community should be taken at regular intervals and compared with one another and with the agency's own detailed technical R&D road maps. These road maps should outline specific testing challenges not only for R&D but for conducting research to address problems that must be resolved in order to produce a vehicle using the concepts.

Additional Cost/Benefit Perspectives

NASA WT/PT facility operating budgets are still a small but more significant part of the amounts paid for systems development. For example, for military fixed-wing aircraft in the past decade, total investments in systems development budgets have run about $2-4 billion a year, and advanced development and demonstration budgets from $0.2 to $2.0 billion a year (see Figure 1.1).

For individual vehicle programs, WT/PT facility costs are also relatively small. To give some perspective from publicly funded programs, the test facility program for representative multiengine military fighters averaged $37.8 million-only 14 percent of the ground testing costs of $267 million, or 5 percent of the total system test and evaluation costs of $796 million. WT/PT facility costs are also low when compared with the $368 million per year spent on flight testing (Fox et al., 2004).

Enabled Aeronautic Gains. The relative benefits from the facility operating costs may be deceptive, because how these dollars are used can have the long-term benefit of enabling aeronautic RDT&E. These funds provide for the operation of tools vital for aeronautics research and system development. They leverage the scientific and engineering knowledge that underpins aeronautic RDT&E and their effective management will improve long-term outcomes in this field.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Wind Tunnel and Propulsion Test Facilities by Philip S. Antón Dana J. Johnson Michael Block Michael Scott Brown Jeffrey A. Drezner James Dryden Eugene C. Gritton Tom Hamilton Thor Hogan Richard Mesic Deborah Peetz Raj Raman Paul Steinberg Joe Strong William P. G. Trimble Copyright © 2004 by RAND Corporation. Excerpted by permission.
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