Environmental assessment approach for the early stages of product design

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School of Engineering | Doctoral thesis (article-based) | Defence date: 2013-02-11
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Date

2013

Department

Koneenrakennustekniikan laitos
Department of Mechanical Engineering

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

69 + app. 121

Series

Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS, 15/2013

Abstract

Engineering designers wield a tremendous power as they are responsible for the design of a large part of the world that surrounds us. All artificial products and services were once a pristine bit of nature and the impact that mankind has on this planet is a growing concern at all levels, from single customers to world-wide companies and governments. The task of producing something that does not contribute to this impact is daunting. The first part of this thesis elaborates on engineering design and the ways of influencing product design towards more environmentally conscious solutions. Engineering design is a complex activity that can be modelled as a process made up of three basic phases - conceptual, embodiment, and detailed design. The decisions made during the early stages of this process are responsible for the majority of the final costs, monetary, environmental or otherwise, of a project. Any changes made to the design after these stages not only unnecessarily bring up the costs, but there are also fewer opportunities to make them. The question remains of how designers can be supported during the design process to produce more environmentally conscious artefacts. Design for Environment guidelines are a good start but they do not provide quantifiable data, full LCA methods are extremely resource consuming and do not provide robust results before the design is finalised, etc. In order to alleviate the shortfalls of these methods, the thesis proposes the DA-Ex approach based on exergy and dimensional analysis. The aim of the approach is to use readily available data that can be stored in a lightweight database, be applicable during the early phases of the design process when the studied artefact is not yet fully defined, provide results of comparable quality to those obtained with existing methods and tools, and offer ways of expanding the studies to fields related to sustainability beyond environmental assessment. The DA-Ex approach first considers exergy transformation efficiency, resource use efficiency, and environmental emission metrics. An expansion is also proposed to cost analysis. Several case studies were performed to test the DA-Ex approach. The results obtained with the approach were compared to those provided by existing methods and indicators, although they could not be compared number to number due to the fact that all methods and indicators function with different characterisations and base hypotheses. The next step for the DA-Ex approach is to include a systemic view, as to not only cover the designed artefact in a study but also its environment and what impact it has on it.

Description

Julkaistu vain painettuna, saatavuus katso Bibid. Published only in printed form, availability see Bibid

Supervising professor

Coatanéa, Eric, Aalto University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Finland
Millet, Dominique, SupMéca Toulon, France

Keywords

product development, engineering design, environmental assessment, exergy, dimensional analysis

Other note

Parts

  • [Publication 1]: Medyna, G., Nordlund, H., and Coatanéa, E. Study of an exergy method for environmental evaluation assessment in the early design phase using comparative LCA and exergy approach. International Journal of Design Engineering, Volume 2 (3), pp. 320 - 345, 2009.
    DOI: 10.1504/IJDE.2009.030178 View at publisher
  • [Publication 2]: Medyna, G., Coatanéa, E., and Millet, D. Comparative study of environmental evaluation assessment using exergetic LCA implemented in existing software and a novel exergetic approach during the early design phase. In Proceedings of the ICED 2009 conference, Stanford, USA, August 2009
  • [Publication 3]: Medyna, G., and Coatanéa, E. Decision making and value considerations during the early stages of engineering design. Global Product Development (Extended Proceedings of the 2010 CIRP Design Conference), Bernard, Alain (Ed.), pp. 397 - 402, 2011.
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-15973-2_39 View at publisher
  • [Publication 4]: Medyna, G., Coatanéa, E., and Millet, D. Environmental and Economic Evaluation of Solar Thermal Panels using Exergy and Dimensional Analysis. Glocalized Solutions for Sustainability in Manufacturing (Proceedings of the 2011 CIRP International Conference on Life Cycle Engineering LCE), Jürgen Hesselbach and Christoph Herrmann (Eds.), pp. 647 - 651, May 2011.
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-19692-8_112 View at publisher
  • [Publication 5]: Medyna, G., Coatanéa, E., and Millet, D. Evaluation of parts of a boat cabin based on exergy - focusing on environmental and economic assessments. In Proceedings of the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress 2011, Denver, CO, USA, November 2011.
    DOI: 10.1115/IMECE2011-63333 View at publisher
  • [Publication 6]: Medyna, G., Nonsiri, S., Coatanéa, E., Bernard, A. Modelling, Evaluation and Simulation During the Early Design Stages: Toward the Development of an Approach Limiting the Need for Specific Knowledge. Accepted for publication in Journal of Integrated Design and Process Science, accepted September 2012.
    DOI: 10.3233/jid-2012-0006 View at publisher
  • [Publication 7]: Coatanéa, E., Medyna, G., Mbeo Ogeya, C., and Ritola, T. Early design stage support using a systemic perspective: sustainable design of pyrolytic stove eco-system. Journal of Cleaner Production, submitted June 6th 2012

Citation

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-60-4986-1

Collections

[diss] Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu / ENG