A Variety Metric Accounting for Unbalanced Idea Space Distributions

AbstractProving the effectiveness of an idea generation method is key to its acceptance in an industrial and academic environment. This necessitates the development of a set of widely accepted metrics covering the different aspects on which idea generation methods can be characterized. This paper gives an overview of the existing metrics, and demonstrates a number of shortcomings in the variety metric, such as not accounting for the fairness of the distribution of ideas over nodes on an abstraction level. A level-based, correctly normalized variety metric, based on the Shannon entropy, is proposed which is shown to resolve the identified issues

Tool Design for Electronic Product Dismantling

AbstractIn industrialized countries, waste electrical and electronic equipment is mostly processed in shredder-based processes, which are characterized by a low recovery of precious metals, rare earth elements and flame retardant plastics. To increase the recycling efficiency for these materials, a dismantling tool has been developed. The development process of the dismantling tool was guided by in-depth analysis of the required disassembly time for LCD TVs and laptops. The results of practical experiments demonstrate that the use of the dismantling tool enable to reduce the dismantling time for plastic housing components and PWBs with respectively 36% and 45% for LCD TVs

Energy consumption analysis of robot based SPIF

Part of: Seliger, Günther (Ed.): Innovative solutions : proceedings / 11th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, Berlin, Germany, 23rd - 25th September, 2013. - Berlin: Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin, 2013. - ISBN 978-3-7983-2609-5 (online). - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:83-opus4-40276. - pp. 131–136.Production processes, as used for discrete part manufacturing, are responsible for a substantial part of the environmental impact of products, but are still poorly documented in terms of environmental impact. A thorough analysis of the causes affecting the environmental impact in metal forming processes is mandatory. The present study presents an energy consumption analysis, including a power study of Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) processes using a 6-axes robot platform. The present paper aims to investigate whether the fixed energy consumption is predominant or negligible in comparison to the actual forming operation. Power studies are performed in order to understand the contribution of each sub-unit towards the total energy demand. The influence of the most relevant process parameters, as well as the material being processed and the sheet positioning, with respect to the power demand are analysed

Sustainable aluminium recycling of end-of-life products: A joining techniques perspective

The sustainable management of aluminium has become crucial due to the exponential growth in global demand. The transition to a sustainable society with lightweight electric vehicles has led to the increasing use of aluminium in the transportation sector. This has consequently led to the importance of aluminium recycling to prevent the valuable material stream going to landfill. In addition, the extraction of primary aluminium has high environmental impact due to the high energy consumption and waste generation in comparison to secondary aluminium processing. Despite being one of the most recycled metals, ongoing trends of multi-material designs and the associated joining choices have caused increasing difficulty of separating aluminium with high purity. This paper evaluates the types of joining techniques causing impurities in the aluminium streams, and the relationship between particle size reduction and the presence of impurities due to joints particularly for end-of-life vehicles. An empirical experiment in a leading European recycling facility was conducted and demonstrated that mechanical fasteners, such as machine screws, socket screws, bolt screws and rivets, are the major types of joining technique causing impurities. Based on the observations from this case study, the characteristics of imperfectly liberated joints are examined. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is also performed to evaluate the environmental impact of recycling different aluminium scrap qualities with varying impurity levels. The outcomes are then used to provide ecodesign guidelines aimed at improving the quality and increase the quantity of recycled aluminium.This study is supported by the Commonwealth Government CRC Program (AutoCRC), the Australian National University, and the Centre for Industrial Management, University of Leuven

Comparative Study of End-of-Life Vehicle Recycling in Australia and Belgium

The increasing complexity of multi-material vehicle designs has created challenges for vehicle recycling. Many countries have implemented different end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) treatment policies and guidelines. For example, the European Commission has set recycling and recovery targets for end-of-life vehicle (ELV). This paper discusses a comparative study on the legislative boundaries and environmental performance of the current ELV recycling processes analysed between recycling companies in Australia and Belgium. It is shown that the strict implementation of the ELV Directive in Belgium has led to better environmental performance, by a factor of 7.9 in comparison to the Australian scenario. The enactment of strict ELV legislation, adoption of advanced recycling technologies, and improvement of the recycling efficiencies of revenue streams are identified as the major influencing factors for a sustainable ELV management system.This study is supported by the Commonwealth Government CRC Program (AutoCRC) and The Australian National Universit

Target-driven sustainable product development

Figuring in sustainability in product development requires a profound understanding of the cause and effect of engineering decisions along the full spectrum of the product lifecycle and the triple bottomline of sustainability. Sustainability design targets can contribute to mitigating the complexity involved, by means of a formalised problem description. This article discusses how sustainability design targets can be defined and presents methods for systematically implementing these targets into the design process. To that end, different means of decision support mechanisms are presented. They comprise (a) use cases of target breakdowns in subsystems, (b) systematic reduction of solution space and (c) assistance in design activities to ensure achievement of sustainability design targets. This paper explains how interfaces to engineering tools such as Computer Aided Design/Engineering (CAD/CAE) or Product Data/Lifecycle Management (PDM/PLM) can be put in place to make the process of retrieving information and providing decision support more seamless

Energy-efficient casting processes

Metal casting is one of the most energy-intensive manufacturing processes that have developed along the evolution of mankind. Although nowadays its scientific and technological aspects are well established, in the context of future resource scarcity and environmental pollution pressures, new studies appear necessary to describe the “foundry of the future” where energy and material efficiency are of great importance to guarantee competitiveness alongside environmental protection. In this chapter, both managerial and technical good practices aimed at implementing energy-efficient casting processes are presented alongside a few examples. The “Small is Beautiful” philosophy is presented as a systematic approach towards energy resilient manufacturing and, potentially, sustainability in the long term. Thus, this chapter aims at providing an overview of the different aspects comprising the state of the art in the industry and examples of research themes in academia about energy-efficient casting processes

Force reduction in bending of thick steel plates by localized preheating

A trend towards higher tonnage press brakes, suitable for processing thick plates, can be observed. In this paper a dynamic method for preheating of thick steel plates, limited to the bending area, is presented, facilitating bending with a significantly reduced total force. The dynamic heating method thus allows to substantially extend the process window of press brakes. The method was experimentally tested on low carbon steel plates, characterised by a relatively high required temperature rise in order to achieve a favourable yield behaviour. A prototype setup developed for this purpose is described. Reported test results include achievable temperature distributions, force measurements as a function of temperature and spring back measurements. A derived simulation model allows to extrapolate the results to higher thickness plates.status: publishe

Force Analysis for single point incremental forming

Single point incremental forming is a new forming process for small batch production and rapid prototyping of sheet metal parts. The forces induced during single point incremental forming are unknown process parameters the magnitude of which is of importance for the development of process models. The purpose of the current study is to develop a method for predicting forces for complex part geometries based on the measured forces for parts with uniform wall angles. Firstly, a set of experiments, planned applying techniques for design of experiments, was performed with the aim of establishing a relation between the forces and the main process parameters for uniform angle parts. A regression equation of the forces was then obtained in terms of four parameters: the vertical step size between consecutive contours, the diameter of the tool, the wall angle of the part and the thickness of the sheet metal. In a second step, a technique of assembling the force curves obtained from the regression equation was employed to predict the forces for other shapes with varying wall angles.status: publishe