A Rapid Automatic Life Cycle Assessment Tool for Eco-Design
Abstract
Increasing concerns about global warming, resource depletion, and ecosystem degradation are pushing manufacturing enterprises to consider environmental impacts of the products they make. Tools such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been developed to quantify environmental performance of a product, yet the implementation of LCA requires a significant amount of time/resources and its potential in assisting eco-design has been limited. Research has been done to conduct automatic LCA using the simplified database for electronics or to investigate the environmental impact of electricity consumption in a manufacturing process. However, a comprehensive and automated approach is in need to perform LCA analysis for a product considering all related materials and manufacturing processes. In this research, a framework for automating LCA analysis for eco-friendly product design has been developed and implemented with a computer program. Two case studies have been conducted using the proposed automatic LCA tool to conduct life cycle analysis in the design process. The result of the tool is able to, with minimal time required, provide detailed distribution of life cycle impact indicators among direct inputs and assist in making design decisions to reduce the environmental footprints.
Degree
M.S.M.E.
Advisors
Zhao, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Mechanical engineering
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