Peggy Zwolinski

A remanufacturing process library for environmental impact simulations

Abstract‘Closed loop’ end-of-life strategies such as remanufacturing must be applied to create eco-efficient products. Remanufacturing may be a key element in reducing the environmental impact of products, but this remains to be proved. The aim of this study is to help designers evaluate the environmental impacts of their remanufacturing process during the design phase. The first task is to identify, list and classify the various remanufacturing processes (disassembly, cleaning, sorting and controlling, reconditioning, reassembly) by the type of process and then estimate the environmental impact for each process. These processes are then formalized by characterization and organized in a database. Using a simulator, the different processes can be aggregated to assess the environmental impacts of a remanufacturing line. An example is presented in the last part of this paper to illustrate the proposal.

Design for High Added-Value End-of-Life Strategies

Sustainable manufacturing is a rising issue. Ensuring both consumer satisfaction and minimal environmental impact is very challenging. In that whole process, it is customary to say that the design stage determines 80 % of the future environmental impact. One way to contain this impact at an acceptable level is to manage the products’ end-of-life from the design activities. This chapter points out product reuse strategies—i.e. direct reuse and remanufacturing—aiming at conserving the added-value of used products as much as possible into new products. The first contribution attempts to provide a state-of-the-art of design for these high added-value end-of-life strategies. Direct reuse and remanufacturing are thus analysed and the principal design guidelines are furthermore given, classified according to three dimensions: product, process and business model. This chapter then contributes to enlarging the spectrum of reuse strategies, presenting an innovative end-of-life strategy: repurposing. It consists of reusing products in other applications after transformations. The main challenges of such a strategy will be discussed.

Importance of User and Usage for Eco-Design

There are methods and technologies developed for generation and evaluation of product proposals for better environmental efficiency throughout the lifecycle. But in use phase these are not effective due to complexity of user behaviours and usage scenarios. Literature review revealed the need to develop products with the help of user to achieve sustainability. An outline of a conceptual system to include user in design is proposed in this chapter consisting of different dimensions based on the interactions and influences. It is important to consider how and where the user uses the product in reality while designing by including user also in design process. When different elements like people, product and environment come together, their individual characteristics, context in which they operate determine the interactions and influences among them. The questions need to be answered are identified to develop the proposed system.

Identification of potential applications for recycled polymeric multi-material

Abstract This research aims to characterise a recycled polymeric multi-material, explore potential areas of application for it and analyse the eventual impacts of the introduction of this new recycled material (NRM) on end-of-life activities. Thus, this research presents a practical study regarding recycled polymeric multi-material from toothbrushes. A preliminary characterisation (via density determination, tensile test and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis – DMTA) and data analysis using the Cambridge Engineering Selector (CES-Edupack 2013) software have been done. The study also presents an analysis of the impacts of introducing the NRM into end-of-life activities. Results shows that, based on the properties considered in this study, NRM may have potential for new applications. The impact on recycling networks indicates that it is a positive solution that would improve process variable efficiencies, maintaining material value as long as possible in industrial closed-loop life cycles. However, an in loco analysis of the treatment of waste containing the NRM is necessary.

Requirements for Design and Environmental Assessment of Products

Companies can have competitive advantage if their products are developed with the help of users and their practice in mind. Product development needs to include user views in the design [1] as the changes to product proposals in design stage needs less effort and time and has major influence on later stages. User-centered design methods have been proposed and implemented. Virtual reality technology has been developed to support these design methods. Advances in virtual reality technologies help realize virtually not only the products but the environment in which they can be used and the actors who use them. This research aims at investigating the eco-design methods and the technology supporting them. A huge challenge in eco-design is to make clear the environmental potential of products for both the engineer and the user. The paper deals with the use of virtual reality technology to see how it can help both designer and user in design and assessment of product and its use to reduce environmental impact. Different studies are reported in literature [2], [3], and [4] but do not address the environmental properties. The paper reviews the literature to propose the requirements of a user-centered eco-design method and investigates the potential benefits of the holographic technology for this purpose.Copyright