Coupled Cost and Environmental Life Cycle Modelling of Composite Car-Bodies for a Korean Tilting Train

Abstract

http://www.lcacenter.org/InLCA2007/2007-abstract-book.pdfInternational audienceA coupled technical cost modelling (TCM) study and environmental life cycle analysis was performed of composite car bodies for the Korean Tilting Train eXpress (TTX) project. This included the cost of both carriage manufacture and the use phase power cost, coupled with the life cycle impacts of all stages from raw material production, through carriage manufacture and use, to end of life scenarios. The functional unit for both cost and environmental LCA was: one car body with a life time of 25 years and used over 7'500'000 km. Metallic carriages for a production capacity of 90 carriages per year for 5 years were compared with 4 material candidates: 1. Full composite car-body (7.6t), 2. Hybrid composite - aluminium car-body (8.5 t), 3. 100% Aluminium (9.0t) and 4: 100% Stainless steel (11.5t). For each process, material and energy consumptions, required labour and other auxiliary inputs are determined depending on train body characteristics. These auxiliary inputs are then combined to a cost database in order to deliver the Total Cost. The model predicts the manufacturing cost and cost segmentation as a function of volume. In parallel, these auxiliary inputs are combined with the ecoinvent Life Cycle Inventory database to yield the total life cycle emissions and extractions as a basis for the calculation of Life cycle impacts. The environmental impact has been assessed using the IMPACT 2002+ method. Results are analysed plotting cost versus energy consumption - as one major indicator of the environmental impacts - for the stages of: a) raw material production, b) manufacturing stage, and c) use phase. The coupled results show that the raw material and manufacturing phase costs are approximately half of the total life cycle costs, whilst the environmental impact is relatively insignificant (3-8%). The use phase of the car body is the most important in terms of environmental impact, for all scenarios. In terms of cost, it represents approximately half of the whole life cycle. With steel rail carriages being of greater weight, the use phase cost is correspondingly higher to give both the greatest environmental impact and the highest life cycle cost. Compared to the steel scenario, the hybrid composite variant has a lower life cycle cost and a lower environmental impact. Though the full composite rail carriage may have the highest manufacturing cost, it is nevertheless the optimum solution when considering total life cycle cost and secondly environmental impact considerations: it indeed leads to both lower total life cycle costs and lower environmental impact than all of the alternatives