Manufacturing and the Science of Sustainability

A new area, called Sustainability Science, is engaging large system scientists to address the challenges that face the future of human society on planet earth. In this paper, the methods and frameworks of diverse disciplines are reviewed and compared with those of the manufacturing community. The results show significant differences between disciplines, including the level of urgency expressed. Synthesizing these divergent viewpoints, this paper makes suggestions for needed research on “sustainable manufacturing”. The main message is that manufacturing needs to significantly increase the boundaries of its analysis to be able to understand its effect at the global scale

Prospective Environmental Analyses of Emerging Technology: A Critique, a Proposed Methodology, and a Case Study on Incremental Sheet Forming

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154436/1/jiec12748-sup-0001-SuppMat.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154436/2/jiec12748_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154436/3/jiec12748.pd

Summary of Research Conducted by the Manufacturing Systems Team 1994-2002

The Manufacturing Systems team was one of the research teams within the Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI) whose goal was to document, analyze and communicate the design attributes and relationships that lead to significant performance improvements in manufacturing systems in the defense aerospace industry. This report will provide an integrated record of this research using the Production Operations Transition to Lean Roadmap as its organizing framework

Summary of Research Conducted by the Manufacturing Systems Team

The Manufacturing Systems team is one of the focus groups within the Lean Aerospace Initiative whose goal is to document, analyze and communicate the design attributes and relationships that lead to significant performance improvements in manufacturing systems in the defense aerospace industry. This paper will provide a usable record of what work has been done by the Manufacturing Systems team and it is aimed at releasing research conducted by the LAI in the field of manufacturing systems. The purpose of this paper is to present the research conducted by the Manufacturing Systems team in the framework provided by the Transition-To-Lean Roadmap. The research results are presented briefly within this framework and each phase of the paper ends with and extensive list of resources for further reference

An Environmental and Cost Analysis of Stamping Sheet Metal Parts

Little work has been done on quantifying the environmental impacts and costs of sheet metal stamping. In this work, we present models that can be used to predict the energy requirements, global warming potential, human health impacts, and costs of making drawn parts using zinc (kirksite) die-sets and hydraulic or mechanical presses. The methodology presented can also be used to produce models of stamping using other die materials, such as iron, for which casting data already exists. An unprecedented study on the environmental impacts and costs of zinc die-set production was conducted at a leading Michigan die-maker. This analysis was used in conjunction with electrical energy measurements on forming presses to complete cradle-to-gate impact and cost analyses on producing small batch size hood and tailgate parts. These case studies were used to inform a generalized model that allows engineers to predict the impacts and costs of forming based on as little information as the final part material, surface area, thickness, and batch size (number of units produced). The case studies show that the press electricity is an insignificant contributor to the overall impacts and costs. The generalized models highlight that while costs for small batch production are dominated by the die-set, the environmental impacts are often dominated by the sheet metal. These findings explain the motivation behind the research into die-less forming processes such as incremental sheet forming, and emphasize the need to minimize the sheet metal scrap generation in order to reduce environmental impacts.United States. Department of Energy (Grant DOE/EE-0998

Turbsim: Reliability-based wind turbine simulator,

Abstract-Wind turbine farms are an effective generator of electricity in windy parts of the world, with prices progressing to levels competitive with other sources. Choosing the correct turbine for a given installation requires significant engineering and the current trend leads towards groups of large horizontal axis turbines. Unfortunately, large wind turbines have to contend with large forces and other sources of failure. With the new push to move generation farms offshore where they are less accessible, the issue of reliability becomes more critical. This work investigates the impact of reliability in a life-cycle analysis simulation of a theoretical wind farm in Massachusetts based upon reliability information from a number of academic sources. The simulator, TurbSim, is designed with significant modularity to enable reliability simulation of any turbine with available wind information. Our simulation of a turbine indicated that reliability makes a small but noticeable impact of 1.24% in its output

Electrochemical oxidation of amoxicillin in its pharmaceutical formulation at boron doped diamond (BDD) electrode

In this work, voltammetric andelectrolysis experiments have been carried out on a conductive boron dopeddiamond (BDD) electrode in solution containing amoxicillin in itspharmaceutical formulation. The physical characterization of the BDD surface byscanning electron microscopy (SEM) reveals a polycrystalline structure withgrain sizes ranging between 0.3 and 0.6 µm. With Raman spectroscopy, BDDsurface is composed of diamons (Csp3) type carbon (Csp3)and graphitic type carbon (Csp2). The electrochemical characterization of the BDD electrode in sulfuric acid electrolyte showed a wide potential window worthing 2.74 V. The oxidation of Amoxicillin showed an irreversible anodic wave on the voltammogram in the domain of water stability indicating a direct oxidation of amoxicillin at BDD surface. The treatment of Amoxicillin in the synthetic wastewaters under various constant current densities 20, 50, 100, 135 mA cm-2 on BDD showed that Amoxicillin is highly reducedunder 100 mA cm-2 reaching 92% of the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD)removal after 5 h of electrolysis. Investigation performed in perchloric acidas supporting electrolyte led to 87% of COD removal after 5 h of electrolysis.Mineralization of amoxicillin occurs on BDD and the chemical oxygen demandremoval was higher in sulfuric acid than in perchloric acid owing to theinvolvement of the in-situ formed persulfate and perchlorate to the degradation process mainly in the bulkof the solution. The instantaneous current efficiency (ICE) presents anexponential decay indicating that the process was limited by diffusion. Thespecific energy consumed after 5h of the amoxicillin electrolysis was 0.096 kWh COD-1and 0.035 kWh COD-1 in sulfuric acid and in perchloric acidrespectively

3D chirp sub-bottom imaging system: design and first 3D volume

Chirp sub-bottom profilers are marine acoustic devices that use a known and repeatable source signature (1 – 24 kHz) to produce decimetre vertical resolution crosssections of the sub-seabed. Here the design and development of the first true 3D Chirp system is described. When developing the design, critical factors that had to be considered included spatial aliasing, and precise positioning of sources and receivers. The design incorporates 4 source transducers (1.5 – 13 kHz) that can be arranged into different configurations, including Maltese Cross, a square and two separated pairs. The receive array comprises 240 hydrophones in 60 groups whose group-centres are separated by 25 cm in both horizontal directions, with each hydrophone group containing four individual elements and a preamplifier.It was concluded that the only way to determine with sufficient accuracy the source-receiver geometry, was to fix the sources and receivers within a rigid array. Positional information for the array is given by a Real Time Kinematic GPS and attitude system incorporating four antennas to give position, heading, pitch and roll. The complete system is described and initial navigational and seismic data results are presented for a 3D seismic volume over folded geological events within the West Solent (UK). These data demonstrate that the approach of using a fixed source-receiver geometry combined with RTK navigation will provide complete 3D imaging of the sub-surface