0000000000448137
AUTHOR
Yelin Deng
Evaluating the material resource efficiency of secondary aluminium production: A Monte Carlo-based decision-support tool
The contamination of aluminium streams during the different life cycle stages by alloy mixing and/or accumulation of foreign elements, in combination with the limited melt purification options during remelting, represents an important limiting factor in recycling. Consequently, in secondary aluminium production, primary aluminium is used to dilute the concentration of the residual elements, and alloying elements are added to adjust the composition to the target alloy specifications. However, adding elements, for which their refinement in a subsequent recycling step is problematic, results in permanent down-cycling or ‘quality losses’. Hence, it is crucial to more efficiently control the com…
Energy and CO2 life cycle inventory issues for aluminum based components: The case study of a high speed train window panel
Abstract As materials production and transport are two relevant sectors in terms of global environmental impact, over the last years environmental impact analyses (mainly life cycle based analyses) of material replacing strategies in means of transportation were developed. Life cycle approach allows to consider the light-weighing benefit without neglecting the environmental impact of material production. In the present research energy and CO2 emissions life cycle analysis of a real case study is presented. Industrial data, experimental measurements and literature analysis were used to develop the life cycle analysis of an aluminum window panel to be assembled on an Italian high speed train.…
Environmental modelling of aluminium based components manufacturing routes: Additive manufacturing versus machining versus forming
Abstract Additive Manufacturing represents, by now, a viable alternative for metal-based components production. Therefore the designer, often, has to select among three options at process design stage: subtractive, mass conserving, and additive approaches. The selection of a given process, besides affecting the manufacturing step impact, influences significantly the impact related to the material production step. If the process enables a part weight reduction (as the Additive Manufacturing approaches do) even the use phase is affected by the manufacturing approach selection. The present research provides a comprehensive environmental manufacturing approaches comparison for components made o…
Tuning Decision Support Toolsfor Environmentally Friendly Manufacturing Approach Selection
Awareness about the environmental performance of manufacturing approaches has arisen. Comparative analyses of different manufacturing approaches as well as decision support methods should be developed in the field of metal shaping processes. The present paper aims at tuning a decision support tool for identifying when mass conserving approaches (forming based) are actually preferable over machining processes for manufacturing aluminum based components. A full LCA is developed for comparing the environmental performance of forming and machining approaches as the batch size and geometry complexity hang. The impact of the used metric on the comparative results is analyzed. Results reveal that …
Optimal design of flax fiber reinforced polymer composite as a lightweight component for automobiles from a life cycle assessment perspective
The present study combines the generalized rule-of-mixture (ROM) model and the Ashby material selection method for the life cycle assessment (LCA) of flax fiber reinforced polymers (FRPs) and glass FRPs (GFRPs). The ROM model allows life cycle environmental impact predictions according to specific parameters of flax FRPs such as fiber format, volume fraction, manufacturing technique, and load-bearing capacity. The comparisons applied in this study are constructed on two common composite structures: mat panels and injection molded struts with equal stiffness and strength as the design criteria. On the one hand, the parametric LCA predicts that the equal strength design criterion for flax FRP…