Application of design for environment principles combined with LCA methodology on automotive product process development: The case study of a crossmember

none4noThe existing Community regulation pushes the carmakers to design eco-sustainability of the vehicle over its life cycle to limit the consequences of the current state and the expected growth of the sector. In this sense, one of the primary aim is reducing raw materials consumption and emissions through the adoption of innovative materials and technologies. This implies the need for the carmakers to integrate Design for Environment (DfE) principles at the early Research and Development (R&D) stage. The article presents a concreate example of integration of DfE and LCA methodology application in the R&D process of a vehicle component produced by Magneti Marelli. The study allowed drawing a balance between the advantages of a lightweight solution with respect to the standard one both from performance and environmental point of view.openMaltese, S.; Delogu, M.; Zanchi, L.*; Bonoli, A.Maltese, S.; Delogu, M.; Zanchi, L.*; Bonoli, A

parameters affecting the sustainability trade off between production and use stages in the automotive lightweight design

Abstract Nowadays, lightweight materials and design is one of the means carmakers employ to reduce CO2 emissions according to EU's goals and sustainability principles. In this paper, a comparative analysis between alternative design solutions for Electric Vehicles (EVs) components was carried out using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) methodologies to evaluate the trade-off between impacts from production and use stages. This work is part of the activities of the ENLIGHT European Green Vehicles project, where the objective was to advance highly innovative lightweight material technologies for application in EVs structural parts. The purposes of the study are: i) to evaluate the parameters influencing the trade-off from the environmental and economic perspective; ii) to combine LCA and LCC results interpretations. The results stressed that the trade-off becomes much more sensitive when innovative materials and technologies are applied to EVs lightweighting

Environmental assessment of light weighting solutions for automotive components: results, trade‐off and challenges from real case studies

In the last few decades, the automotive industry is facing the most deal with sustainability programs due to the increase of legislate limits on CO2 emissions and vehicle recyclability rate. Consequently, decisions on products design and development go together with environmental considerations, by starting to look for the employment of lighter materials, thus reducing vehicle mass weight and therefore fuel consumption and CO2 emissions during the dominant operation stage of a vehicle’s life cycle. To tackle this problem many of today automotive components are made of alternative materials like plastics, polymer composites, lighter metals which should lead to weight reduction with the same mechanical performances. Magneti Marelli® designs and produces hi-tech systems and components for the automotive sector representing a significant contribution on vehicle mass weight with a roughly 15% portion of incidence. So, in accordance to the environmental regulations, the Company has started to get involved into sustainability programs by focusing attention on the environmental impact of its products. In particular since 2012 Magneti Marelli has included in its mission the “improvement of environmental and energy performances of products and relatives processes during their whole life cycle, through innovative methodologies that assess the potential impacts in a quantitative way”, in this way highlighting the importance of meeting the increasing stakeholders’ expectations and their requests for transparency in results’ communication. This work addresses the main outcomes stemmed from the several LCA studies carried out over different components in terms of materials and technologies production allowing a wider environmental conscious related to the usage of different materials and manufacturing processes. Results showed that the materials employed offer the major contribution on the total impact especially for raw materials extraction and production and for the vehicle use phase, with a further substantial difference connected to the use of virgin instead of recycled materials. The main discussed points will be: i) the trade-off between production phase and use phase impacts; ii) End-of-Life analysis at component level beside the ISO 22628:2002 for the whole vehicle; iii) critical analysis and selection of environmental indicators significant for the automotive sector. Keywords Automotive sector, Life Cycle Assessment, vehicle component, Sustainable Manufacturing, Design for Environment, composites, light weightin

Pilot-Scale Investigation of an Innovative Process for Biogas Upgrading with CO2 Capture and Storage

Abstract In this work an innovative carbon dioxide removal method that, differently from the currently employed commercial techniques, allows also to capture and store the separated CO 2 is investigated. This process, Alkali absorption with Regeneration (AwR), consists in a first step in which CO 2 is separated from the biogas by chemical absorption with an alkali aqueous solution followed by a second step in which the spent absorption solution is regenerated for reuse in the first step and the captured CO 2 is stored in a solid and thermodynamically stable form. The latter process is carried out contacting the spent absorption solution, rich in carbonate and bicarbonate ions, with a waste material characterized by a high content of calcium hydroxide and leads to the precipitation of calcium carbonate and to the regeneration of the alkali hydroxide content of the solution. The proposed processes were first investigated by preliminary laboratory and simulation analysis. On the basis of the results of these tests, air pollution control (APC) residues from Waste-to-Energy plants were selected as the material to use for the regeneration step and a pilot-scale regeneration plant was designed, built and installed in a landfill site downstream of the already existing absorption column. In this paper the sizing and design of the regeneration plant and the results of the preliminary AwR pilot- plant tests are reported. This study was carried out within the framework of the UPGAS-LOWCO2 (LIFE08/ENV/IT/000429) Life+ project

κ−(BEDT−TTF)2X\kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_2X organic crystals: superconducting versus antiferromagnetic instabilities in an anisotropic triangular lattice Hubbard model

A Hubbard model at half-filling on an anisotropic triangular lattice has been proposed as the minimal model to describe conducting layers of $\kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_2X$ organic materials. The model interpolates between the square lattice and decoupled chains. The $\kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_2X$ materials present many similarities with cuprates, such as the presence of unconventional metallic properties and the close proximity of superconducting and antiferromagnetic phases. As in the cuprates, spin fluctuations are expected to play a crucial role in the onset of superconductivity. We perform a weak-coupling renormalization-group analysis to show that a superconducting instability occurs. Frustration in the antiferromagnetic couplings, which arises from the underlying geometrical arrangement of the lattice, breaks the perfect nesting of the square lattice at half-filling. The spin-wave instability is suppressed and a superconducting instability predominates. For the isotropic triangular lattice, there are again signs of long-range magnetic order, in agreement with studies at strong-coupling.Comment: 4 pages, 5 eps figs, to appear in Can. J. Phys. (proceedings of the Highly Frustrated Magnetism (HFM-2000) conference, Waterloo, Canada, June 2000

Effect of a lattice upon an interacting system of electrons: Breakdown of scaling and decay of persistent currents

For an interacting system of N electrons, we study the conditions under which a lattice model of size L with nearest neighbor hopping t and U/r Coulomb repulsion has the same ground state as a continuum model. For a fixed value of N, one gets identical results when the inter-electron spacing to the Bohr radius ratio r_s < r_s^*. Above r_s^*, the persistent current created by an enclosed flux begins to decay and r_s ceases to be the scaling parameter. Three criteria giving similar r_s^* are proposed and checked using square lattices.Comment: 7 pages, 5 postscript figure

Unarousable child with a short bowel

Unarousable child with short bowel: A 4-year-old boy was admitted with progressive lethargy of a few hours' duration and no other symptoms. His medical history was relevant for short bowel syndrome (SBS), following neonatal volvulus, with residual bowel length of 23 cm and intact ileocecal valve. He had similar self-limiting episodes in the past, after weaning parenteral nutrition, especially after eating large meals. The day before, he had consumed a large amount of apples. Arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis showed metabolic acidosis with normal lactacidaemia (pH 7.09, pCO2 19 mm Hg, pO2 101 mm Hg, HCO3 5.8 mmol/L, BE -24, anion gap 29.4, chloride 116 mmol/L, L-lactate level 4 mmol/L). On admission, the child could be awakened, but he was confused with slurred speech (Glasgow Coma Scale 14), with a body temperature of 37 C°, a heart rate of 125 beats/min and a respiratory rate of 38 breaths/min. The abdomen was distended, without guarding and with normal bowel sounds. Blood glucose levels were normal, as well as white blood cell count, liver and kidney function test and C reactive protein. An abdominal ultrasound ruled out an intussusception. An abdominal X-ray was performed too (seefigure 1). Figure 1 Abdominal distension with gas and bloating. Questions: Which is the most likely diagnosis? Encephalitis D-lactic acidosis Dehydration with third space fluid collection and acidosis Hereditary fructose intolerance. How is this diagnosis confirmed? D lactic dosage Breath test for bacterial overgrowth Urine organic acid dosage Search for reductive substances in the stools. How should this patient be managed? Intravenous fluids to facilitate D-lactic excretion Restrict carbohydrates in the diet Intravenous bicarbonates Antibiotic treatment to reduce bowel bacterial overgrowth. Answers can be found on page 2

Kohn-Luttinger instability of the t-t' Hubbard model in two dimensions: variational approach

An effective Hamiltonian for the Kohn-Luttinger superconductor is constructed and solved in the BCS approximation. The method is applied to the t-t' Hubbard model in two dimensions with the following results: (i) The superconducting phase diagram at half filling is shown to provide a weak-coupling analog of the recently proposed spin liquid state in the J_1-J_2 Heisenberg model. (ii) In the parameter region relevant for the cuprates we have found a nontrivial energy dependence of the gap function in the dominant d-wave pairing sector. The hot spot effect in the angular dependence of the superconducting gap is shown to be quite weak

A Neural Approach to Active Estimation of Nonlinear Systems

Abstract-In this paper, we consider the problem of actively identifying the state of a stochastic dynamic system over a finite horizon. We formalize this Problem as a Stochastic Optimal Control one, in which the minimization of a suitable uncertainty measure is performed. To this end, the use of the Renyi Entropy is proposed and motivated. A neural control scheme, based on the application of the Extended Ritz Method and on the use of a Gaussian Sum Filter, is then presented. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the approach

Magneto-Roton Modes of the Ultra Quantum Crystal: Numerical Study

The Field Induced Spin Density Wave phases observed in quasi-one-dimensional conductors of the Bechgaard salts family under magnetic field exhibit both Spin Density Wave order and a Quantized Hall Effect, which may exhibit sign reversals. The original nature of the condensed phases is evidenced by the collective mode spectrum. Besides the Goldstone modes, a quasi periodic structure of Magneto-Roton modes, predicted to exist for a monotonic sequence of Hall Quantum numbers, is confirmed, and a second mode is shown to exist within the single particle gap. We present numerical estimates of the Magneto-Roton mode energies in a generic case of the monotonic sequence. The mass anisotropy of the collective mode is calculated. We show how differently the MR spectrum evolves with magnetic field at low and high fields. The collective mode spectrum should have specific features, in the sign reversed "Ribault Phase", as compared to modes of the majority sign phases. We investigate numerically the collective mode in the Ribault Phase.Comment: this paper incorporates material contained in a previous cond-mat preprint cond-mat/9709210, but cannot be described as a replaced version, because it contains a significant amount of new material dealing with the instability line and with the topic of Ribault Phases. It contains 13 figures (.ps files