Productivity gains have recently been made at the National Transonic Facility wind tunnel at NASA Langley Research Center. A team was assigned to assess and set productivity goals to achieve the desired operating cost and output of the facility. Simulations have been developed to show the sensitivity of selected process productivity improvements in critical areas to reduce overall test cycle times. The improvements consist of an expanded liquid nitrogen storage system, a new fan drive, a new tunnel vent stack heater, replacement of programmable logic controllers, an increased data communications speed, automated test sequencing, and a faster model changeout system. Where possible, quantifiable results of these improvements are presented. Results show that in most cases, improvements meet the productivity gains predicted by the simulations.
Recent Productivity Improvements to the National Transonic Facility
1998
12 pages
Report
No indication
English
Test Facilities & Equipment , Air Transportation , Improvement , Operating costs , Transonic wind tunnels , Computerized simulation , Productivity , Production engineering , Liquid nitrogen , Heating equipment , Data transmission , Wind tunnel drives , Controllers , Control systems design , Systems integration , Cryogenic fluid storage
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