Ansys JOFOC 2.9.22_Redacted.pdf

JOFOC-2021-001

Rev.:01/2021

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

NASA SHARED SERVICES CENTER (NSSC)

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

(JOFOC) – SOLE SOURCE

For 80NSSC22Q0017 ANSYS Agencywide Ordering Contract

1. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.303-2(b)(1) – Identification of the agency and the contracting activity, and specific identification of the document as a “Justification for other than full and open competition.”

This document is a sole source justification for other than full and open competition prepared by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Shared Services Center (NSSC).

The procuring agency is NASA, and the contracting activity is the NSSC Enterprise License Management Team (ELMT).

2. FAR 6.303-2(b)(2) – The nature and/or description of the action being approved:

This justification provides the rationale for contracting by other than full and open competition to award a sole-source single-award Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to ANSYS, Inc. This will be an Agency-wide contract to purchase ANSYS and ANSYS’s subsidiaries products, software licenses, services, and training.

3. FAR 6.303-2(b)(3) – A description of the supplies or services required, to meet the

Agency’s needs (including the estimated value):

ANSYS provides an ANSYS-branded suite of modeling and simulation tools including capabilities in the following engineering disciplines: structures, crash, thermal, fluids, photonics, semiconductors, electromagnetics, materials, mission, test, evaluation, and orbit determination.

Other specific ANSYS capability offerings are described below.

ANSYS provides Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software that enables engineers to produce inline solutions, perform insight and work collaborative agreements for NASA’s major programs.

ANSYS’ FEA tool offering provides unique capabilities, products and solutions that assists engineers in overcoming design challenges and mitigating some of the largest risks faced by NASA’s major programs.

ANSYS Mechanical/ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL) software provides the core functionality to perform structural and dynamic analysis of propulsion system hardware to ensure NASA mission requirements are met. The ANSYS Mechanical/APDL software is essential to maintain compatibility with the many external vendors and primary contractors used in the development of propulsion systems across the Agency.

capabilities, forced response analyses, nonlinear modeling capabilities (friction, large deformation, contact etc.), customizable ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL) allowing for easily implemented tailored failure modes, design optimization capabilities for maximizing vehicle performance and strength / weight ratios, and numerous others. NASA engineers have 30+ years of ANSYS usage writing a plethora of customized APDL codes that interface with ANSYS enabling analytical predictions of the numerous structural failure modes associated with propulsion system and engine system components.

Phoenix Integration is unique in that it has algorithms and capabilities of an MDAO (Multi- Discipline Design, Analysis and Optimization) platform coupled with MBSE integration for performing requirements and behavior analysis in an interconnected networked environment.

The unique benefits of ANSYS is demonstrated by the following examples of Center utilization:

NASA uses ANSYS for essentially all its liquid rocket engine structural assessments which touches on nearly every NASA project and program. These include the large quantity of heritage Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) assessments and SSME’s derivatives – the RS- 25 Adaptation and RS-25 Restart engines; these are essential for the success of the SLS program. For the Commercial Crew Program (CCP), ANSYS is critical for inline and insight assessments of SpaceX’s Merlin1D engines, Merlin Vacuum engines, and the Draco and Super Draco thrusters for the Dragon Capsule. Also, for CCP, much of Boeing/ULA’s engine suite (RL10’s and Launch Abort Engine) are dependent upon ANSYS for their assessments.

For the Human Landing System (HLS) program, the inline and insight efforts related to the Raptor and Raptor Vacuum engines are based on ANSYS assessments. And finally, numerous small thrusters for kick stages and RCS systems (touching nearly all programs) and many small and large solid rocket system applications (particularly nozzles) use ANSYS for their structural assessments. With NASA’s 30+ years of ANSYS usage, loss of this tool would be devastating to propulsion structural analysis capabilities.

ANSYS mechanical and ANSYS FLUENT is used to understand how an acoustic bio-liner with good absorption characteristics in a low frequency range where current absorbers do not work well for the propulsion noise issue. The fluid-structure interaction (FSI) modeling is necessary to perform predicted testing throughout the different NASA missions.

ANSYS products are used for modeling work to guide design decisions, such as the current work that is focused on the development of environmental barrier coatings (EBCs) used to protect ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) used in jet engines from degradation by water vapor, and the current work on the advanced manifolds.

AGI’s System Tool Kit (STK) software and Orbit Determination Took Kit (ODTK) software are being used by the Navigation and Mission Design Branch (NMDB), Flight Dynamics Facility (FDF), Mission Design Lab, Space Science Mission Operations (SSMO), and the Space Communications and Navigation (ScaN) groups. STK is used primarily for mission design (helping to design maneuvers, orbits, and run analyses) and ODTK is primarily used for navigation (helping to determine definitive/predicted accuracies for orbit determination).

This software is being used operationally for missions like OSIRIS-REx, FERMI, MAVEN, Themis/Artemis, DSCOVR, LRO, the Space Shuttle Program and the Human Space Program. The software is also heavily used for the proposals and upcoming missions that NMDB is supporting that are not yet operational, including DAVINCI+, Lunar IceCube, Roman, CapStone, SWFO, Lunar Gateway, JWST, and for the majority of the studies performed in the Mission Design Lab. It is used to perform Monte Carlo and Covariance analysis that drives many requirements and determines fuel requirements. In the FDF, STK is used heavily by Human Spaceflight for its ability to quickly provide an astrodynamics engine in order to perform analyses and visualizations. This tool is heavily used in determining if tracking assets will maintain communications with crew during launch aborts.

AGI’s STK is unique in that it allows the analyst to save mission scenarios exactly where they left them off without having to re-run their entire scenario. STK also has a unique reporting capability, allowing the user to report out data for time events in their scenario, which is extremely beneficial for analysts to respond quickly to project requests such as ground track reports, range reports, etc. The AGI software has visual capabilities that provide 3-D views that allow the analyst to understand the orbit design and constraints. It also provides for a GUI environment to construct mission scenarios along with the ability to interface with Matlab, Python, and other mathematical tools used for driving input/output and change of parameters. The software also provides numerous examples coordinate frames, propagators, central bodies, and integrators for ease of use for the analyst. ODTK has an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and Smoother which has been used operationally for years.

There is no other Orbit Determination tool that is more reliable than ODTK at this present time and considering the public scrutiny placed on NASA missions and personnel in space, this high level of reliability is essential. ODTK is also the only tool market research efforts have found that performs simultaneous estimation of multiple spacecraft via the EKF. This is required for Orbit Determination accuracy for the TDRS spacecraft, which cannot be met with other tools. This is also required to provide an accurate propagated covariance of the EOS spacecraft so that correct collision avoidance screening can be completed by CARA.

Loss of the ANSYS program for performing structural analysis for the aforementioned programs would cause significant programmatic delays and greatly increase risks for the respective programs. Because of this extensive usage over three decades, thousands of existing models exist and tens of thousands of hours have been spent going toward the development of customized APDL scripts tailored to capture the structural failure modes specific to engines and required by NASA’s standards (e.g. primary strength, high cycle fatigue, low cycle fatigue, point strain etc.).

1. A tremendously large retraining effort would be required to train analysts in other tools. Given the number of ANSYS users (easily 50+ users), this would result in an enormous impact. Work stoppage would occur on essentially all propulsion and engine systems due to this retraining. And, even after considerable training on other codes, the effectiveness and efficiency of the work force would be greatly diminished given the new code would have reduced capabilities and the analysts would effectively have only months of experience in the new code compared with years of experience with ANSYS. NASA’s capabilities are reduced significantly with the loss of ANSYS.

2. Hundreds of custom tools would have to be translated or rewritten completely and then would have to be revalidated before their results could be used. This code validation process is not trivial. This would cost thousands or even tens of thousands of hours to accomplish.

3. Existing ANSYS model archives would have to all be translated to other codes. And in many cases, this would not be possible given no other code has the breadth and depth of capabilities as ANSYS. In these cases, heritage model translations would not be possible, and the data would simply be lost.

4. NASA’s ability to interface with liquid rocket engine prime contractors would also be lost. ANSYS is the predominant structural assessment code used for liquid rocket engines. The government’s ability to transfer FEA data back and forth with the primes would be eliminated – thus making much of the inline and insight work currently being done not possible.

6. FAR 6.303-2(b)(6) – A description of the efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by Subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under 5.202 applies:

A request for Information was published to Government Point of Entry (GPE) website (sam.gov) on October 20, 2021 in an effort to ensure that we reach as many potential sources as practicable under the sources sought number 80NSSC22Q0005.

A notice to the Government Point of Entry (GPE) website (sam.gov) was published on December 6, 2021, in accordance with FAR Subpart 5.2. This posting informed potential sources of NASA’s intent to award this sole-source contract under the special notice number

80NSSC22Q0017.

The results are summarized in Section 10 below.

7. FAR 6.303-2(b)(7) – A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

The Contracting Officer’s signature on this document indicates that the Contracting Officer has determined that the anticipated cost to the government will be fair and reasonable. The Contractor shall be required to submit a proposal to be evaluated and negotiated by the Government. Prior to execution of the contractual instrument, a price analysis will be performed. The price analysis will ensure that the final agreed-to price for future orders is fair and reasonable for the life of the IDIQ.

This procurement is for a commercial item, which the price can be determined fair and reasonable based on a comparison of the established market price and historical pricing.

8. FAR 6.303-2(b)(8) – Description of the market research conducted, and the results, or a statement of the reasons a market research was not conducted:

A review of GSA Advantage was conducted, and it was determined that the entire product line of requisite software products and their respective maintenance and support is not available through GSA. A review of NASA SEWP was conducted and showed no vendors listed as authorized value-added resellers for the entire suite of ANSYS products to include maintenance, new licenses, training, and consulting support for all of NASA.

ANSYS Inc. per their sole source letter (August 13, 2021) provided verification of its sole authority to offer NASA this suite of licenses to the Ansys / AGI (Analytical Graphics) / Phoenix Integration Software.

A request for information resulted in not finding an indication of existing depth or breadth of alternative capability.

9. FAR 6.303-2(b)(9) – Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition:

In accordance with FAR 6.303-2(b)(9)(ii), the following data is provided for estimated cost to the Government that would be duplicated and how the estimate was derived.

A primary issue would be with the translation and migration of the immense amount of existing ANSYS data. The ANSYS data set at NASA consists of 30+ years of model archives, tens of thousands of man hours going toward the development of customized APDL scripts tailored to capture the structural failure modes specific to engines and required by NASA’s standards (e.g. primary strength, high cycle fatigue, low cycle fatigue, point strain etc.). This translation and conversion task would be a huge labor impact due to having to start from scratch moving to new tools.

There are several capabilities that ANSYS offers that are unique. ANSYS provides the ANSYS/LS-DYNA software which is essential to ensure critical debris impact requirements are met for launch vehicles. Extensive calibrations have been performed during return to flight activities using the material models developed in ANSYS/LS-DYNA. These material models simulate the complex behavior and failure of ice and foam materials which are only available in the ANSYS/LS-DYNA software. Also, the existing ANSYS suite of products and custom developed code has uniquely been tailored for liquid engine failure modes and the safety factor requirements found in NASA’s structural standards (e.g. primary strength, high cycle fatigue, low cycle fatigue, point strain etc.). When contractually and legally allowed, this customized code is frequently shared with NASA’s prime contractors;

conversely, it is not uncommon for their code to be shared with the government as part of the insight process. This collaborative approach is mutually beneficial and creates a more effective and efficient NASA / industry partnership.

If ANSYS were to be replaced, there would be significant training required for personnel to learn alternate, less capable codes. This training would require a significant upfront cost and would take years of use before the level of current expertise could be realized.

Additional support personnel would be required to bridge the gap between ANSYS and any other Vendor that would impact the processes already established. The number of hours required to transfer data, implement new processes, and to continue support for legacy designs and migration of these designs to new software would be the costliest aspect.

Most ANSYS software at NASA is in a maintenance mode which is less costly than new licenses. The costs of buying all new licenses for another tool with the same capabilities would be much more expensive that maintaining the ANSYS licenses NASA already has.

The cost of changing platforms would be significant in dollars, time, lost data, and loss of backward compatibility with legacy designs. To replace ANSYS, training cost and investment would be substantial, implementation would result in adverse impact on labor and data, and project objectives and milestones supporting mission critical requirements would be negatively impacted. The NASA technical users are always looking for better software to meet their requirements but thus far ANSYS is the only software that fully fulfills the NASA requirements.

The cost to procure and integrate a new software to meet NASA’s requirements would come close to the total cost estimate of for the follow-on contract and would create a delay that could cause a setback of years; therefore, the purchase of another software would not be in the best interest of the Government. Duplication costs include the initial purchase plus maintenance for an estimated amount of . Furthermore, the cost to rewrite modeling and 100s of custom tools, including the validation, is estimated to be over

(over 110,000 engineering, quality assurance hours). In addition to these costs, the upfront cost of providing requisite training would also need to be factored in.

10. FAR 6.303-2(b)(10) – A listing of the sources, if any, that expressed an interest in writing in the acquisition:

A notice of NASA’s intent to award this sole-source action was synopsized on the GPE website (Sam.gov) per FAR Subpart 5.2 (See Section 6 above).

Sources Sought published date October 20, 2021 with a response date of November 3, 2021.

This sources sought resulted in three responses: ANSYS Inc, In review of the responses, the technical review did not find an expressed capability comparable to the existing ANSYS suite of modeling and simulation tools which specifically includes capabilities in the following engineering disciplines: structures, crash, thermal, fluids, photonics, semiconductors, electromagnetics, materials, mission, test, evaluation, and orbit determination. During the review they did not find an indication of existing depth or breadth of alternative capability.

A Notice of Intent to sole source was subsequently published on December 6, 2021 with a response date of December 9, 2021. No responses were received.

11. FAR 6.303-2(b)(11) – A statement of actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required:

The Agency will continue to examine the market in the future for alternative solutions before executing any subsequent contract action for the requirement herein. Due to the nature of the expressed requirement, there are no known actions which the Agency may take to give consider.