Massimo Delogu

Design for disassembly: a methodology for identifying the optimal disassembly sequence

Optimizing the disassembly sequence of mechanical systems is very useful in order to improve maintenance and recycling activities (i.e. to reduce costs, times and number of operations). A new virtual disassembly environment, based on two different algorithms, is presented. The first analyses the physical constraints that oppose the movement of the mechanical element: starting from its three-dimensional computer-aided design representation, it creates the ‘AND/OR’ graph of a mechanical assembly that represents the space of disassembly solutions. The second algorithm, using a representation based upon binary trees, allows the automatic exploration of the set of all possible sequences. Among these, the optimal one can be identified, choosing a specific target function. The developed methodology provides the theoretical basis for the creation of a computer-aided design tool able to evaluate the ability to disassemble a mechanical complex during the early design phase.

On-field investigation and process modelling of end-of-life vehicles treatment in the context of Italian craft-type authorized treatment facilities.

The present article analyses the current situation of End-of-Life-of-Vehicles (ELVs) management in Europe, with particular attention on Italian condition. Similarly to other European countries, metal recycling is the main activity of the whole system, but such situation is evolving due to the 2000/53/EC Directive, which sets out targets for Reuse, Recycling and Recovery of ELVs. Due to the relevance of the ELVs problem, in 2008 Italian Ministry of Environment subscribed a framework agreement with competent stakeholders as carmakers, dismantlers, shredders. The main result is an industrial plan to promote (amongst other objectives) technological progress for residual waste (Automotive Shredder Residue-ASR) treatment. According with Italian Trial 2006 analysis about ELVs, Reuse and Recycling rate is currently estimated to be about 81%. At the present time, dismantling plants constitute the first collection points for ELVs; for this reason, during 2009 an investigation has been done over a number of ten Authorized Treatment Facilities (ATFs) operating in Italy. The first step of the analysis was aimed to find out major practices and methods through observations of ATFs activities and interviews to operators. Furthermore, the depollution and dismantling treatments of about 70 different ELVs have been observed and timed in detail over a period of three months. The results included the identification of most relevant critical issues in ELVs treatment, such as distortions between scrapping activities and Directives regulation, and the assessment of the time and of the resources needed to perform each operation. In the second step of the survey, a process simulation model has been built on the basis of such data. The model was aimed to include the real variability and all the uncertainties that are typical of dismantling activities; it is intended as a tool for process layout planning and for its management. Some control parameters have been introduced; these are able to dynamically modify process path depending on ELVs queues and priorities. The model can also be used for the economic assessments of single operations or of the whole treatment activity.

Analysis of the main elements affecting social LCA applications: challenges for the automotive sector

PurposeSocial life cycle assessment (S-LCA) applications have been growing during the last years. Most of the scientific articles published so far have addressed the applicability of S-LCA, focusing on selecting suitable indicators, and only recently, the developments in the area of impact pathway are increasing. However, a critical analysis of how to set an S-LCA study, in particular the goal and scope and inventory phase, is missing. This article critically analyses the most important elements affecting the goal and scope and inventory phase of S-LCA, with a focus on the automotive sector, with the ultimate goal of developing a structured approach to guide practitioners in the critical application of S-LCA.MethodsThe literature review covers 67 publications from 2006 to 2015, including all the case studies published so far, to the best knowledge of the authors, in several sectors and the automotive one. The reviewed works have been structured along the key elements affecting the goal and scope and inventory phases of the S-LCA.Results and discussionThe methodological and practical issues affecting S-LCA have been organized into a conceptual map, in which all the elements are sequentially placed. This sequence is an orderly procedure consisting of several nodes representing crucial points where a decision needs to be taken or a further reflection is necessary. The case studies of the automotive sector and the corporate-related documents have been used also for the discussion of the conceptual map nodes to identify which aspects are already covered by the literature and which ones need further research.ConclusionsFacing the inventory phase of S-LCA needs also to set specific elements of the goal and scope phase which are fundamental for approaching coherently the product system at hand and for supporting the selection of stakeholders, indicators, and data. Moreover, in order to foster S-LCA applications and make it a robust decision-support tool, the authors suggest to re-define its framework and approach according to the organizational perspective, as laid down in the recent Organisation Environmental Footprint and Organizational LCA. This implies that social aspects will be evaluated both in relation to the organization behavior and to the basket of products, thus reconciling the need to keep together the conduct-of-a-company perspective, typical of social evaluations, and the product-oriented approach, inherent to the life cycle and in particular to the functional unit concept.

Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Costing as Supporting Tools for EVs Lightweight Design

This study is concerned with the lifecycle impact and cost of lightweight design for Electric Vehicles (EVs). The applicability of novel materials, bio-composite and fiber reinforced thermoset matrix primarily, and related innovative manufacturing technologies, is evaluated for some relevant modules of vehicle. The study is part of the ENLIGHT European project that aims to advance highly innovative lightweight materials and technologies for application in structural vehicle parts of future volume produced (EVs) along four axes: performance, manufacturability, cost and lifecycle footprint. The preliminary results showed that, for the specific studies, material production and manufacturing represent the most critical life-cycle phases from environmental and economic point of view respectively. The trade-off between impacts of production and use phase needs to be faced by means of detailed analysis when EVs lightweight solutions are proposed.

End-of-Life in the railway sector: Analysis of recyclability and recoverability for different vehicle case studies

The railway system represents one of the most resource-efficient answer to our ever-growing demand for transport service and the development trends for the following years forecast a substantial increase in this sector. Considering the European Union, rolling stock realizes a significant share of both goods and passengers carriage while it is responsible for a derisory quota of environmental impact and energy consumption involved by transportation. Contrary to the low environmental impact, the amount of End-of-Life (EoL) waste generated by rolling stocks in relation to the number of vehicles is notable, much greater than in the case of road vehicles. As railway vehicles are constituted by many heterogeneous components, the EoL rolling stock is a precious source of materials, whose recycling brings measurable economic benefits and needs to be appropriately debated. The paper presents calculation of recoverability/recyclability rate for different typologies of vehicles representative of railway transport; calculation is performed on the basis of primary data and according to the recyclability and recoverability calculation method issued by UNIFE in the context of Product Category Rules (PCR). The typologies of railway vehicles taken into account are electric metro, diesel commuter train and high-speed electric train. The analysis envisages also to replicate the calculation in case innovative materials and manufacturing technologies are adopted in the construction of car-body structure. Results show that recyclability/recoverability rates are abundantly over the quota of 90% for each one of the three trains, these latter being made in major part of metals that benefit from very efficient recovery processes. The adoption of innovative materials and manufacturing technologies for car-body structure involves a scarce reduction of recyclability and recoverability rates (about 2% and 0.2% respectively) due to the introduction of components and materials characterized by critical dismantlability and low efficiency recovery processes; recoverability results less affected by lightweighting because post-shredding thermal recovery treatments are roughly independent with respect to dismantlability. A sensitivity analysis based on different dismantling scenarios reveals that the effectiveness of dismantling has a moderate influence on recyclability/recoverability rate (the variation does not exceed 3%). The low variability of recyclability/recoverability rate can be explained by the following reasons: predominance of metals in trains material composition, efficiency of metals separation processes close to 100%, post-shredding recycling processes of metals characterized by recovery factors equal to the ones of post-dismantling recycling processes.

A sustainability analysis for Electric Vehicles batteries including ageing phenomena

In order to encourage and develop a more sustainable society, the European Union (EU) set targets to drastically decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. For this reason, it will be necessary a reduction of emissions especially from the transportation sector. Electric vehicles (EVs) are the most promising technology for drastically reducing the environmental burden of road transport, i.e. emissions of CO2, air pollutants and noise of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. In this paper, a proposal methodology for sustainability analysis, in terms of environmental (Life cycle assessment, LCA) and economic issues (Life cycle costing, LCC), was applied to an EV battery, including ageing phenomena. In particular, in order to define a global result the environmental outcomes (expressed in tCO2-eq) are converted into economic terms, considering the CO2 price related to the European market variability.

Sustainable Design: An Integrated Approach for Lightweighting Components in the Automotive Sector

In past years the European Union (EU) set targets to reduce emissions in order to encourage and develop a more sustainable society. As a consequence of this, the carmakers began to study new materials and innovative technologies in order to lightweight their vehicles, thus reducing use stage fuel consumption and environmental impact. A promising strategy for this is replacing steel with composites although the adoption of these materials often involves negative effects on production and End-of-Life (EoL) stages. For this reason, a comprehensive assessment of the entire component Life Cycle (LC) is needed, not only in terms of environmental issues but also economic and social ones. This paper presents a sustainable design approach based on TOPSIS methodology functional to compare different design solutions in the automotive sector; the approach is also validated by an application to a real case study.

A comparison of electric vehicles use-case scenarios: Application of a simulation framework to vehicle design optimization and energy consumption assessment

Electric vehicles (EVs) can contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions in comparison with equivalent Internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) due to their high overall efficiency and to regenerative braking capabilities. Considering that EVs technology cannot still be defined as mature, different technologies currently coexist on the market such as extended range, hybrid, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, each one presenting advantages and disadvantages. The energy storage system, which is a critical component, can be designed in different size and characteristics depending on the configuration of the whole vehicle. The activity here presented aims at proposing a framework for the comparison of various EVs using realistic use scenarios as input. Real world driving cycles developed within the EU FP7 Project ASTERICS are used as source for scenario definition through pseudo random Montecarlo generation. Similarly, any other relevant data for vehicle performance are considered: environmental temperature, trip chaining, charging opportunities; all of them are then used as input for a vehicle simulation model. The method is implemented using energy consumption and related CO2 emissions as typical output, but in case that proper models are available to describe the ageing characteristics of vehicle components, durability analyses can also be performed. A few applications for the proposed approach are presented, using a model of electric vehicle based on a market product as case study. From the baseline model, new alternatives are modeled, differing in terms of powertrain sizing. The activity describes the use phase of the vehicles, simulating a large number of events representing several years of life. Finally, CO2 emissions are used as output for comparative analyses.

A Novel Approach for Axiomatic-Based Design for the Environment

The Eco-design approach for new product development is becoming progressively more and more important for competitive and legislative reasons, especially in advanced markets (EU USA, East Asia, etc.). Its importance is increasingly growing since the decisions made in early design stages largely affect not only the cost but also the environmental impact of a product. This paper introduces a novel approach that could be used to increase the potential capability of an Eco-design approach. This aim is achieved through a better fit between the critical environmental issues and the development of new solutions using AD. The introduced approach, first, considers a meta-product point of view that uses a customized Smart Eco-design Platform and the Axiomatic Design (AD) for the improvement of the eco-sustainability of products. Then, the approach introduces the meta-system level as the reference level for detecting the system Design Matrix and developing an uncoupled design. This goal could be achieved through the use of AD and the implementation of the environmental information as a tool to reduce the space of the available design solutions. The first axiom aims to define the Design Matrix of the Functional System in order to detect its best configuration. The purpose is to avoid an optimization without appropriate knowledge in terms of interaction among meta-product and resources. Then, the Functional Requirements definition, used in AD, could represent the ideal index for the ease of sharing information and knowledge on a wide scale among different industrial sectors. The development of the Smart Eco-design Platform could encourage the use of this approach in real product development. The sharing of the database enables obtaining information for reducing the field of design parameters that satisfy the Functional Requirements. In this way, it could be possible to develop a system of products with an overall higher level of eco-sustainability and a better use of resources through information derived from other fields and experiences. Typical goals that are reachable are, for instance, represented by a system that needs less consumption of energy and material during the whole product life cycle.

Challenges for modelling and integrating environmental performances in concept design: the case of an automotive component lightweighting

Abstract The objective of this paper is to discuss the main barriers for modelling and integrating the environmental performances in the automotive concept design. Incorporating environmental assessment in the early design phase of a vehicle component is known as an important challenge that car makers need to face in order to develop more sustainable design solutions; in this regard, the Life Cycle Assessment is the most widespread methodology for the environmental assessment and comparison of alternatives. The present work illustrates the combination of such methodology with the traditional design procedure at two different levels of the component design phase, material choice and concept design. In particular, the potential benefits originated by a lightweight solution for the automotive component Throttle Body are evaluated by considering environmental and technical implications at the same level. The case study shows that a multi-disciplinary approach for design effectively allows the integration of the environmental issue in the company’s established procedures. However, interpretation of results is still a challenging aspect due to the inevitable contradicting elements which should not discourage to develop comprehensive sustainability assessment within the early design stage.