Department of Mechanical engineering

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Life cycle assessment (LCA)

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    Development of a platform for supporting design for environment
    (ICED, 2007) Kota, Srinivas
    Individual guidelines often exist for DfE but these are not integrated with design tools. There is no comprehensive method that can be useful for the whole life cycle of a product in various stages of its design. Few tools exist that could aid iterative changes to a design required in product development and there is a need for an integrated methodology and computational support for designers. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) [1] is arguably the most promising and scientifically defendable method for estimating environmental impacts of a product during its lifecycle [2]. Like DfE guidelines, LCA tools are not well integrated with design process and tools. Consequently, there is a need for an LCA tool integrated into the natural design process that can be applied to early as well as detailed design stages
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    Development of a method for estimating uncertainty in evaluation of environmental impacts during design
    (ICED, 2007-08) Kota, Srinivas
    Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is currently the most promising and scientifically defendable technique for estimating environmental impacts of a product during its lifecycle. Currently, detailed LCA is critically dependent on high volumes of product specific data, time consuming, often unaffordable and used in the detailed stages of design. Current approximate LCA methods are either incomplete, inaccurate or require prior knowledge of what data is important. There is substantial uncertainty involved in the environmental impact calculations in LCA. Literature suggests that impact estimation results must be accompanied by an estimation of its uncertainty or imprecision, without which the decisions taken could be misleading. During development of a product, there is often a lack of accurate information about its structure, lifecycle stages, and related environmental impact information. As information about the product lifecycle continues to evolve during development, the assessment method should be such that it incorporates the different levels of abstraction about product information. A key result to be presented in this paper is a preliminary method developed using interval algebra and probabilistic theory taking product structure and lifecycle uncertainties into account. This method helps in estimating impact values of a product proposal in the earlier stages of design by providing an uncertainty value in terms of confidence on the result calculated, with the intention of supporting design decision making
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    Requirements for Design and Environmental Assessment of Products
    (Springer, 2022-11) Kota, Srinivas
    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.
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    Importance of User and Usage for Eco-Design
    (Springer, 2012-11) Kota, Srinivas
    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.
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    Sustainability Assessment of Sanitary Ware Supply Chain Using Life Cycle Assessment Framework—A Case Study
    (Springer, 2020-07) Sangwan, Kuldip Singh
    Sanitary wares are the integral part of construction materials but there is hardly any study in the literature which shows the environmental impacts from the sanitary ware. This paper aims at assessing sustainability of a ceramic sanitary ware supply chain by quantifying the environmental impacts from materials and resources used throughout the different phases of a sanitary ware life cycle. The impacts are quantified using ReCiPe endpoint and midpoint assessment methods with Umberto NXT Software and eco-invent 3.0 database. This study uses climate change, fossil depletion, human toxicity, metal depletion, ozone depletion, terrestrial acidification, water depletion, damage to ecosystem quality, human health, and resources assessment categories to quantify the environmental impacts. The life cycle assessment finds that consumption of heavy fuel oil, electricity, grass, and cement mortar is primarily responsible for the negative impacts on the environment. It is also found that manufacturing and transportation phases of the supply chain have maximum contribution to the environmental degradation. The methodology, assessment methods and impact categories used in the study can be used by the other ceramic enterprises for the identification and benchmarking of environmental hotspots in their supply chains. It is expected that this study will be useful for the policy makers as well as the manufacturer to find the key areas for decreasing the environmental impacts and enhancing sustainability of a sanitary ware supply chain.
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    An Environmental Sustainability Assessment of a Milling Process using Life Cycle Assessment
    (CRC Press, 2022) Sangwan, Kuldip Singh
    The growing demand to reduce the environmental burden has encouraged manufacturers as well as users to pursue various green machining strategies and technologies that enable increasingly efficient use of limited resources. Assessment and quantification of the environmental impacts caused by machining processes serves as the foundation towards the visualization and mitigation of environmental emissions. The research community has addressed the life cycle analysis of machine tools to quantify their environmental emissions during their life cycle, but the environmental impacts of the actual machining process have not been addressed effectively. This study presents the life cycle analysis of a milling process to evaluate and quantify its environmental impacts during raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation and end of life phases for the manufacturing a sample product. The environmental impacts were assessed in both endpoint and midpoint impact assessment categories using the ReCiPe method. Raw material production, electricity consumption, cutting fluid production and disposal, chip processing and compressed air production are identified as major factors causing environmental impacts. It is evident from the analysis that energy consumption plays a major role in environmental impacts using the milling process directly (for material removal) and indirectly (compressed air production and the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system). Therefore, reduction in energy consumption plays a major role in reducing the environmental impacts of the milling process. Sensitivity analysis has been carried out to assess the robustness of the results obtained from the machining life cycle assessment study. This analysis can be used as a foundation for the formulation of key plans for the improvement of environmental sustainability in machining processes.
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    Evaluation and comparison of environmental performance for shackle insulators – a case study
    (Emerald, 2019-09) Sangwan, Kuldip Singh
    The purpose of this paper is to compare environmental performance of two shackle insulator manufacturing enterprises in India by evaluating and quantifying the life cycle environmental impacts in these enterprises using ISO 14040 guidelines.
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    Life Cycle Assessment of Smithy Training Processes
    (Elsevier, 2013) Sangwan, Kuldip Singh; Digalwar, Abhijeet K.
    Sustainability has long been a part of social responsibility. Today sustainability is a part of the core business strategies. It is viewed with environmental and economic perspectives. India, being a manufacturing hub has to deal with the problem of environmental and social impacts of these manufacturing operations. Smithy operations have large adverse impact on the environment. Life-cycle analysis should be applied to alleviate and reflect environmental burdens of this process. This paper presents the basic concepts of sustainability and life cycle analysis. A study has been carried out in the context of smithy training process. Software tool Umberto 5.6 with eco-invent 2.2 database is used for analysis. The effect of smithy training in term of acidification potential, climate change, eutrophication potential, freshwater aquatic, eco-toxicity, marine aquatic eco- toxicity, human toxicity, ionizing radiation, land use, photochemical Ox (smog), and stratospheric ozone depletion.
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    A Comparative Study on the Life Cycle Assessment of a 3D Printed Product with PLA, ABS & PETG Materials
    (Elsevier, 2022) Sangwan, Kuldip Singh
    Sustainability aims to meet the demands of the present generation as well as improve the quality of life, develop the economy, conserve resources, and protect the environment for the future generations. Additive manufacturing is one of the techniques to achieve sustainability in manufacturing. Life cycle assessment is a useful tool to ensure viability and applicability of new technology and assess whether it offers tangible benefits compared to conventional methods. There is hardly any comparative study on the life cycle assessment of the widely used filament materials. This research compares the environmental impacts of widely used filament materials (PLA, ABS, and PETG) for a 3D printed product from cradle to cradle that includes four phases: raw material extraction, production, use and recycling. Environmental impacts and hotspots in terms of both endpoint and midpoint categories have been estimated. The research provides decision support for stakeholders to compare the environmental impacts of different materials and accordingly select the most environmentally friendly material.
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    Environmental Impact Analysis of a Water Supply System: Study of an Indian University Campus
    (Elsevier, 2015) Sangwan, Kuldip Singh
    The paper aims at analyzing the water supply, its consumption, recycling and related energy consumption at a University campus in India. The university is located in semi-arid area and provides a unique example where the per capita water consumption is above the Indian average and the water is extracted from the overexploited groundwater aquifer. The groundwater is the only source of water supply providing 2.05 million liters of fresh water per day. In the last few years the university has embarked on water saving techniques using rain water harvesting and water recycling. The ground water extraction and its supply consume a lot of energy thereby increasing the environmental impact of the water supply. Mapping of the water source and consumption has provided valuable information to assess the major sources of water consumption and to take appropriate actions to optimize per capita water consumption and reduce water losses. The environmental impact of the water supply system on campus has been determined by conducting a life cycle assessment using Umberto NXT universal life cycle assessment software with ReCiPe endpoint and midpoint methods. It was found that tap water used in buildings has highest impact on environment while the recycled water used for irrigation has nearly zero impact.