Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1932. / On cover: University of Pennsylvania. Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-234).

Thesis (LL.M.). / Written for the Institute of Air and Space Law. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2009/06/17). Includes bibliographical references.

Master of Science / Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering / Mohammad H. Hosni / Byron W. Jones / Due to the high occupant density and large number of travelers on commercial aircraft, it is crucial to limit the transport of contaminants and pathogens amongst passengers. In order to minimize the exposure of passengers to various contaminants of different sizes and characteristic, all mechanisms influencing airflow movement within an aircraft cabin need to be understood. The use of personal gaspers on commercial aircraft and their relation to airborne contaminants and pathogens transport is one such mechanism that was investigated. Tracer gas testing using carbon dioxide (CO[subscript]2) was conducted in a wide-body, 11-row Boeing 767 aircraft cabin mockup using actual aircraft components for air distribution. Three separate experiments were conducted investigating the effect of gaspers on the transport of contaminants. The first series of experiments focused on the effect of gaspers on longitudinal transport patterns within an aircraft cabin environment by measuring the concentration of tracer gas along the length of the aircraft cabin. The second experiment investigated what fraction of air a passenger inhales originates from a gasper in relation to the overall cabin ventilation. The final set of experiments determined if gaspers could limit close range person-to-person transmission of exhaled contaminants. Three separate sets of conclusions were drawn, one for each series of experiments. The first conclusion is that gaspers disrupt the longitudinal transport of contaminants within the aircraft cabin. The second conclusion is that less than 5% of the air inhaled by a passenger is originating from a gasper even with a gasper directed at the passenger's face. This low percentage is a result of the turbulent airflow within the aircraft cabin causing the gasper jet to quickly mix with the overall cabin ventilation air. The last conclusion is that gaspers can reduce person-to-person transmission of exhaled contaminants as much as nearly 90% in some cases. In other cases the gaspers are found to have negligible or negative impact on the transmission of contaminants. These conclusions are dependent upon where the tracer gas plume emanated from, the sampling location, and the configuration of gaspers around the tracer gas release point.

Truely optimal solutions to system design can only be obtained if the entire system is considered. In this research we consider design of commercial aircraft, but we expand the system to include a family of planes. A multidisciplinary design optimization framework is developed in which multiple aircraft, each with different missions, can be optimized simultaneously. Results are presented for a two-member family whose individual missions differ significantly. We show that both missions can be satisfied with common designs, and that by optimizing both planes simultaneously rather than following the traditional baseline plus derivative approach, the common solution is vastly improved. The new framework is also used to gain insight to the effect of design variable scaling on the optimization algorithm. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2011. / Page 88 blank. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 82-87). / Using an industry analysis framework, this thesis analyzes whether the recently established Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) is likely to break the Boeing-Airbus duopoly in the industry of large commercial airplanes. The selected framework for this thesis is comprised by the following two principles: 1) "The nature and degree of competition in an industry hinge on five forces, one of these being the Threat of New Entrants, which depends on the height of Entry Barriers." (Porter 1979, 1) 2) "In order to cope with the competitive forces in an industry, there are three potentially successful generic strategic approaches to outperforming other firms in the industry: overall cost leadership, differentiation, and focus." (Porter 1980, 35) The results from the barriers of entry analysis suggest that Comac enjoys full unconditional support from the Chinese government as the development of an aerospace industry is deemed as national interest. However, the firm faces a high barrier of entry derived from the advantages the incumbent companies have in terms of their learning and experience curves, which allow them to effectively conduct research and development and innovate. In the long run, as the companies seek sustained competitive advantage (Porter 1984, 34), I find that Comac will mainly rely on generic strategy 'cost', while the incumbents counteract by adopting mainly generic strategy 'differentiation' and 'focus'. This thesis claims the chances of success for Comac largely depend not only on finding the right strategy for a proper balance between 'cost' and 'differentiation', but mainly on the Chinese government being able to maintain protectionist policies in place. In other words, the Chinese government must continue to decide for the domestic airlines what airplanes they should buy. This conclusion is reached by analyzing the history of all previous attempts by China to develop a national jet-which have all been unsuccessful- and the recent history of high-tech industries where China represented the world's largest market and there was a national interest for technology transfer. / by Jose L. Fuentes. / S.M.in Engineering and Management

The content of customer-perceived value has in this study been explored with the aim of providing an understanding of the concept. The evolving service-centered logic for marketing puts an emphasis on value, especially the value perceived and determined by the customer. Concurrently, a development is recognized within the industrial business-to-business sector where goods and services are packaged into total service offerings – with an increasing prominence for services. This is the background of the study. The study itself was conducted in order to elucidate the concept of customer-perceived value in a context where total service offerings are provided within dyadic business-to-business relationships. The conceptual framework, guiding the empirical study, has its points of departure in the field of service research. A case study conducted in the commercial aircraft engine maintenance industry has provided a description – depicted in value maps – of context-specific attributes forming the dimensions of customer-perceived value. It is suggested that customer-perceived value is created at three levels; at a product level, at a partnership level, and at a psychological level. Furthermore, the value maps clarify the double nature of customer-perceived value, which is found to have both an origin side – how the service provider should act to deliver value – and a side illuminating the more or less monetarily quantifiable effects of value. The origin and effect of customer-perceived value are proposed to be explained by a model where the notion of “flow” is central. Flows of goods, information, risk, involvement, and money intersect the value features and provide the sources of value on the origin side of customer-perceived value. The effects can be traced to the flows of revenue benefits, cost benefits, interest effects, and costs to use. Concurrently, flows both build, and are filtrated by, “trust” during the process in which the customer’s perception of value comes into being. On the effect-side of value, the concepts stochasticity and substantiality are introduced in order to capture the uncertainties that make translations into monetary terms difficult. The outcome of the abductive reasoning in the final phase of the investigation is a conceptual model – proposed as the main contribution of the study – summarizing aspects of customer-perceived value. My definition of customer-perceived value, together with a list clarifying the many facets of the concept, concludes the study.

Ces dernières années, la conception de produit vise de plus en plus à remettre le client aucentre du processus de développement. De nouvelles méthodes et outils ont permis de formaliser nonseulement l’identification des besoins et des attentes du client mais également leur transformation enexigences. Cependant, malgré les progrès récemment apparus dans ce domaine, la notion de valeurperçue par le client qui est associée au produit reste faiblement considérée durant le développement duproduit alors que la perception de cette valeur par le client va jouer un rôle clé au moment du choix duproduit.Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une approche normative visant l’intégration de la notion devaleur du produit dans le processus d’établissement des exigences. Un état de l’art présente lesconcepts et les pratiques impliqués dans le déploiement de la fonction de qualité, étroitement liée auprocessus de spécification des exigences basé sur la valeur. Ces concepts sont relatifs aux notionsd’objectifs, de modèles de la valeur, de fonctions d’utilité multi attributs et de hiérarchie et de réseauxd’objectifs.Notre approche se déroule en 4 étapes : (1) identifier et structurer les objectifs à partir del’expression des attentes du client, (2) spécifier les attributs de la valeur perçue par le client etconstruire un modèle de la valeur client, (3) transformer les objectifs en exigences pour construire unmodèle global de la valeur produit et (4) dériver ce modèle global en un modèle de la valeur pourchaque composant du produit. Cette approche permet ainsi de prendre en compte explicitement lavaleur produit perçue par le client en l’intégrant dans les phases de développement, ce qui favorise uneconception proactive dirigée par la valeur.Nous l’illustrons sur un exemple d’avion de ligne développé en Vanguard Studio. Cet exemplea été élaboré par l’ensemble des partenaires au cours du projet Européen IST CRESCENDO et sert decas-test pour ce projet / Recently customer-based product development is becoming a popular paradigm. Customer needsand expectations are identified and transformed into requirements in systematic processes for productdesign with the help of various methods and tools. However, in many cases, these approaches fail tofocus on the perceived value that is crucially important when customers make the decision ofpurchasing a product. The requirements specification derived from these approaches are typicallyvalue-implicit.In this thesis, a prescriptive approach to derive value-based requirements specification is proposedby integrating the concept of value into the house of quality of quality function deployment. Anintegrated set of theories, methods and concepts is introduced in order to mitigate the sevenmethodological problems of house of quality regarding to establishing appropriate value-basedrequirements specification. The foundations of the approach include concepts of objective, valuemodel and consequence model, methods of means-ends objectives network, fundamental objectiveshierarchy, response surface methodology and value-driven design, and theory of multi-attribute utilitytheory. The procedure of the approach is a four-step process: (1) identify and structure objectives frominitial customer statements of expectations, (2) specify attributes and construct customer value model,(3) transform fundamental objectives into engineering characteristics to construct system value model,and (4) derive component value models from system value model. Through this procedure, initialcustomer statements can be reasonably derived into customer value model, system value model andcomponent value model. The benefits of the approach are that it enables (1) reasonably qualifying andquantifying customer value, and performing value modeling and simulation, (2) perceived customervalue being subsequently used reactively for design evaluation, and proactively for value-drivendesign.The approach is applied in the context of a European Community’s R&D project CRESCENDO tohelp constructing airlines’ group value model for commercial aircraft development. This applicationfocuses on the first two-steps of the approach, and the value models are implemented in businesssoftware Vanguard Studio

The market for large commercial aircraft is in turn dominated by the duopoly of Airbus SAS, a division of EADS, and Boeing Commercial Airplanes, a division of The Boeing Company. My Aim is to describe the current strategic and financial situation of the two largest companies in the aerospace industry with a particular focus on the divisions supplying Large Commercial Aircraft. I describe the production of civil airliners in the whole context of the current global economic situation and the future of aviation. Strategic analysis using methods like PESTLE analysis, PORTER 5F and SWOT focuses mainly on the analysis of macro environment in relation to the companies and aviation business as it is the main driver of aviation expansion. The success of business strategies of both companies will influence the air traffic in the future, determine its nature, quality and availability for customers. Strategic analysis of the intense mutual competition will summarize the main company strategies and their current financial situation. Air traffic development is closely connected to the subject and is also analyzed. Source materials for the analysis are Airbus and Boeing annual reports, public corporate documents, press articles and journals on the topic of aviation and transportation, public IATA reports and other expert studies and forecasts are also used.

S’appuyant sur une approche comparative et historique au niveau de la firme, cette thèse étudie les dynamiques de la réussite économique à long terme de la construction d'avions civils aux Etats-Unis et en Europe. Cette analyse est menée à partir de l’étude d’Airbus et de Boeing qui sont les deux plus grandes firmes du secteur aéronautique au niveau mondial. La thèse identifie les conditions sociales qui influencent les capacités concurrentielles des deux firmes et les pratiques qui jouent un rôle sur l’amélioration ou la dégradation des capacités productives de leur secteur à travers un cadre analytique basé sur les modèles productifs / les modèles d’affaires (productive/business models). Les trois éléments majeurs de l’activité productive au niveau de la firme, à savoir la stratégie d’entreprise, la structure organisationnelle et le degré d’engagement financier sont analysés dans ce cadre appliqué à l’intégration de systèmes. Les résultats de cette recherche montrent qu’il existe une forte corrélation entre la sous-traitance massive, la financiarisation des stratégies d’entreprise et les relations conflictuelles de travail. L’évolution des stratégies d’Airbus et de Boeing et leur influence sur l’amélioration ou la dégradation de leurs capacités productives sont fortement liées aux transformations dans le domaine financier et dans l’organisation productive / les relations industrielles qui caractérisent les économies occidentales depuis les trois dernières décennies. Les conséquences des actions menées par les entreprises sur la promotion de l’emploi dans leur(s) pays d’origine sont questionnées et des implications en termes de stratégies d’entreprise et de politiques publiques sont tirées de cette thèse. / This dissertation analyzes the dynamics of long-term success in commercial aircraft manufacturing in the US and Europe performed through a historical-comparative methodology employed for firm level analysis. The firm-level case studies are Airbus and Boeing, the two biggest firms in the commercial aircraft manufacturing industry. Through an analytical framework concentrated on business/productive models of corporate activity, the study identifies the social conditions that influence the competitive capabilities of these two companies and their practices in upgrading, or downgrading, the productive capabilities of their respective industries. The three main elements of firm-level productive activity under modern capitalism, namely corporate strategy, organizational structure and financial commitment are analyzed through the lens of the systems-integration business/productive model framework. The results of the research show that there is a strong correlation between extensive outsourcing, financialization of business strategies and conflicting employment relations. Distinct constructive and destructive processes of corporate strategies of Airbus and Boeing are strongly linked to the role of the transformations of finance and work organization/industrial relations in the last three decades in Western economies. The consequences of corporate action on the promotion of secure jobs with positive prospects for their respective economies are questioned and relevant implications are drawn for business and government policy.

This thesis investigates the turbulent flow in the wake of the wing-body junction of the NASA Common Research Model to further reveal its complex vortical structure and to contribute to the reference database used for Computational Fluid Dynamics validation activities. Compressible flows near two wall-boundary layers occurs not only at the wing-body junction but at every control surface of an airplane, therefore increased knowledge about this complex flow structure could potentially improve the estimates of drag performance and control surface efficiency, primarily for minimizing the environmental impact of commercial flight. The airplane model is modified by adding an inboard flap to investigate the influence from the deflection on the vorticity and velocity field. Future flap designs and settings are discussed from a performance improvement point of view, with the investigated flow influence in mind. The experimental measurements for this thesis were collected using a Cobra Probe, a dynamic multi-hole pressure probe, for Reynolds numbers close to one million based on the wing root chord. A pre-programmed three-dimensional grid was used to cover the most interesting parts of the junction flow. The facility used for the tests is a 120 cm by 80 cm indraft, subsonic wind tunnel at NASA Ames Research Center’s Fluid Mechanics Lab, which provides an on-set flow speed of around Mach 0.15, corresponding to approximately 48 m/s. / Den här avhandlingen undersöker det turbulenta flödet runt övergången mellan flygplanskropp och vinge på en NASA Common Research Model för att vidare utforska den komplexa, tredimensionella strukturen av flödet och bidra till NASA’s officiella databas för jämförelser med simulerade flöden. Kompressibla flöden nära tvåväggsgränsskikt uppkommer inte bara vid övergången mellan flygplanskropp och vinge utan även vid varje kontrollyta på ett flygplan. Ökad kunskap om flödets beteende vid sådana områden kan därför bidra till en bättre uppskattning av prestanda och effektivitet av kontrollytorna och flygplanet i sin helhet, vilket kan bidra till minskad miljöpåverkan från kommersiell flygtrafik. Flygplansmodellen är modifierad genom montering av en vingklaff på den inre delen av vingen, detta för att undersöka hur olika vinklar på klaffarnas nedböjning påverkar flödets struktur och hastighetsfält. Framtida klaffdesigner och inställningar för ökad prestanda diskuteras även utifrån denna påverkan. Mätningarna i vindtunneln gjordes med en Cobra Probe, ett dynamisk tryckmätningsinstrument, speciellt designad för turbulenta och instabila flöden. Reynoldsnumren som generades av den subsoniska, indrags-vindtunneln var ungefär en miljon baserad på vingrotens längd, vilket motsvarar knappt en tiondel av normala flygförhållanden för samma flygplansmodell.