Design for sustainability

Energy label is an important strategy to save energy in the household appliances sector. There are many publications related to standards and labels but little information about their potentialities and limits. Although successful standards and labels have been launched in many Countries, their implementation does not have a unique structure, the same energy policy framework and citizens awareness. This study aims to perform an analysis of principal aspects related to Energy Label framework to understand its main potentialities and limitations. Possible strategies to overcome these limits and suggestions to increase its effectiveness are also proposed.

Keywords: eco-design , Energy label , household appliances , standards

Maritime vessels are complex products with long service life and great costs of building, manning, operating, maintaining and repairing. The paper aims to introduce a specific life cycle model and related metrics in shipbuilding design, supporting decision-making processes of material selection, manufacturing/assembly practices, maintenance, use, etc. The model provides a common structure for life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) including the way to retrieve and to collect necessary data for the analysis starting from the available project documentation and design models. Different design configurations (materials, welding methods, etc.) for hull and hatches of a luxury yacht have been analysed using the proposed model.

Keywords: design , LCA , LCCA , maritime vessels , shipbuilding

The management of end-of-life tyres (ELTs) is regulated by several national and international legislations aiming to promote the recovery of materials and energy from this waste. The three main materials used in tyres are considered: rubber (main product), which is currently reused in other closed-loop applications; steel, which is used for the production of virgin materials; and textile fibres (approximately 10% by weight of ELTs), which are mainly incinerated for energy recovery (open-loop scenario). This study aims to propose and validate a new closed-loop scenario for textile fibres based on material reuse for bituminous conglomerates. The final objective is to verify the technical, environmental, financial, and economic feasibility of the proposed treatment process and reuse scenario. After characterization of the textile material, which is required to determine the technological feasibility, a specific process has been developed to clean, compact, and prepare the fibres for subsequent reuse. A life cycle assessment (LCA) has been carried out to quantify the environmental benefits of reusing the fibres. Finally, a cost benefit analysis based on the LCA results was conducted to establish the long-term financial and economic sustainability. From a technological point of view, the tyre textile fibres could be a promising substitute to the reinforcement cellulose commonly used in asphalts as long as the fibres are properly prepared (compaction and pellet production) for application in the standard bituminous conglomerate production process. From an environmental point of view, relevant benefits in terms of global warming potential and acidification potential reduction were observed in comparison with the standard incineration for energy recovery (respectively −86% and −45%). Moreover, the proposed scenario can be considered as financially viable in the medium to long term (cumulative generated cash flow is positive after the 5th year) and economically sustainable (expected net present value of more than €3,000,000 and economic rate of return of approximately 30%). Finally, the sensitivity and risk analyses show that no specific issues are foreseen for the future implementation in real industrial applications.

Keywords: Circular economy , Cost–benefit analysis , End-of-life tyres , Feasibility evaluation , Reuse scenario

One of the most actual and consistent driver for industry is sustainability. This topic opens at different problems according to the three sustainability pillars: environment, economic, and social. Regarding the last one, there is a lack for methodologies and tools. Moreover, industries are crossing today a crucial transition in terms of technologies. The so called fourth industrial revolution is ongoing. This is a second challenge for industries that needs to be competitive reducing their time to market integrating new technologies on their production sites. From these perspectives, this work is aimed at highlighting the role of the humans under the Industry 4.0 paradigm. A new transdisciplinary engineering method to favour the sustainable manufacturing is provided. It allows designing a connected environment (IoT framework) aimed at measuring and promoting social sustainability on production sites. The work also remarks the relationship between social sustainability and productivity. Indeed, optimizing the human works permits to improve the quality of the working conditions while improving efficiency of the production system. The case study was performed at an Italian sole producer. The goal of the analysis was to improve and innovate the finishing area of the plant from a social point of view with the perspective of digital manufacturing. An IoT framework has been installed, without affecting the productivity, and the work of 2 operators has been compared in order to identify common problems and define a synergy strategy.

Keywords: Digital manufacturing , Human factors , Industry 4.0 , Social sustainability , Sustainable manufacturing

The growing attention on sustainable development themes, in line with an increasing awareness of the exhaustibility of natural resources, has made the traditional linear economic model obsolete. Therefore, the concept of "Circular Economy" was developed to favour products and materials recovery and regeneration. To this end Industrial Symbiosis represents a promising approach to foster the transformation towards this type of economy, based on resource efficiency, sustainable manufacturing, materials, energy, water and/or by-products exchange and sharing between different companies. In this context, the aim of this paper is to present a classification and a critical discussion about existing industrial symbiosis models. According to the presented literature review, industrial symbiosis can be realized thorough the implementation of three different models: (i) industrial symbiosis districts that develop from a bottom-up approach and are based on resources sharing and materials exchanging, (ii) eco-industrial parks that develop from a top down approach and are determined by eco-sustainable infrastructures and systems, and (iii) networks for industrial symbiosis that evolve through cognitive/relational tools and are based on resources supply and demand intersection. The final objective of this study is to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of each model, to explore the applicability in real contexts, and to identify potential economic and environmental benefits (e.g. reduction of polluting emissions and landfilled wastes, economic savings due to reuse of scraps, energy sharing). The study concludes by identifying research gaps, reflecting on possible application of industrial symbiosis and proposing suggestions for future work.

Keywords: Collaborative platform , Eco-industrial parks , Industrial symbiosis , Industrial symbiosis districts , Resource efficiency

The paper deals with the feasibility of a flexible robotic cell for the disassembly of electronic components. First, the need for an automated process for the end of life management of electronic boards is motivated: the reuse of electronic components represents a potential cost saving opportunity for a class of electronic board producers, other than an effective means to improve the waste management efficiency and the sustainability of the electronics sector. Then, starting from a state of the art survey, a technical implementation of the cell is proposed. Finally, some preliminary tests of the disassembly equipment, aimed at setting the most relevant process parameters, are described.

The growing attention on environmental and social sustainability issues is pushing companies to move towards new business models. In this context, PSS (Product Service System) seems to be one of the most suitable model to foster the transition to sustainable economic models. The PSS is composed of a mix of tangible products and intangible services. The method proposed in this paper supports the PSS design. The objective of this work is to integrate careful assessment of economic, environmental and social sustainability supporting the transition towards new business models and strategic company decision-making. The method is then validated through a case study on the management of urban waste.

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability , Product-Service System , PSS method , Social Sustainability

End of Life Tires (ELT) constitute a major portion of End of life Vehicles (ELV). The treatment process of ELTs is primarily aimed at recovering steel and rubber, which jointly represent the main portion of the ELT material and are currently applied in different sectors. During the treatment of ELTs, other sub-products are generated in significant quantities (about 10-15% in weight), as textile fibers that currently are landfilled or used for energy recovery. The aim of this study is a comparative evaluation of the environmental impacts related to three different end of life scenarios for the textile fibers. In addition to landfilling and incineration, this study considers the possibility to reuse textile fibers as reinforcement in bituminous conglomerates. Results obtained through the Life Cycle Assessment study confirms that the reuse scenario leads to a relevant reduction of impacts in terms of Global Warming Potential. However, by considering other environmental metrics the reuse scenario is not always the less impactful one.

Keywords: End of life tires , environmental impact , fiber material , second life application

In the last decade, the environmental sustainability has become an important issue that drives more and more the consumer decisions. Consequently, industrial companies are called to meet the growing demand for more sustainable products. Especially in the furniture sector, customers pay serious attention to the emissions that negatively affect human health and so they request products with low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions. This represents a big challenge because it requires the strictly control of each component provided by all the supply chain actors through expensive laboratory tests. For this aim, the present paper proposes a method to estimate the total VOCs emissions of furniture products starting from the characteristics of all semi-finished products (e.g., geometric features, product composition, process information and functionality) and through the definition of an appropriate impact scale based on historical data. It allows making the supply chain (SC) more sustainable, limiting costly chamber tests.

Keywords: Furniture products , Indoor air quality , Product declaration , Sustainable Manufacturing , VOC emissions

Even if specific directives have been issued to regulate the management of End of Life Tires (ELT), several materials are still not properly recovered. This is the case of textile fibers obtained from the treatment of ELTs. This study aims to investigate and quantify the environmental impacts related to the reuse of tires textile fibers as second-life material for the preparation of plastic compounds. The Life Cycle Assessment methodology has been used to compare the baseline scenarios (landfilling and incineration) with the reuse scenarios. Results obtained confirms that reuse scenarios are generally more environmental sustainable than the currently implemented strategies.

Keywords: End of life tires , Life Cycle Assessment , Material reuse , Textile fiber

Promoting a more sustainable and energy-saving economy is one of the main goal of the European Community. In this context, home appliance manufacturers are researching and developing more efficient and sustainable products. Home automation and smart objects, by implementing specific energy management strategies, can significantly reduce energy waste. This paper aims to investigate the benefits offered, in terms of environmental impacts, by a smart system for kitchen air treatment. The system is composed by two inter-connected smart devices: a kitchen hood and an additional aspiration system able to assure a constant indoor comfort minimizing energy consumption and heat losses. Three different configurations were analyzed and compared: conventional extractor kitchen hood, smart extractor kitchen hood, and smart filtrating kitchen hood with smart additional aspiration system. Results show that in comparison with a traditional hood, products equipped with smart devices present lower environmental impact, due to the optimization of their energy consumptions.

Keywords: air quality assessment , household appliance , kitchen hood , life cycle assessment , smart objects

Human factors are fundamental for manufacturing sustainability, which is determined by social, economic and environmental performance. However, there is a lack of engineering methods and tools that are able to integrate their analysis with product and process optimisation according to sustainability principles. The present study proposes an analytical approach to support sustainable manufacturing (SM) by analysing the so-called user experience (UX) of manufacturing and assembly processes starting from the early design stages. Considering both behavioural and cognitive aspects of manufacturing UX and defining a corresponding model, it is possible to estimate the UX impact on manufacturing sustainability for a certain product and its related processes. The proposed method is implemented in a computer-based framework, which can be easily integrated with environmental and cost assessment tools to integrate all three SM aspects. Finally, a case study focused on automated machines is presented; the proposed approach was used to redesign the machine to improve its economic, environmental and human-related impacts. The industrial case study provides concrete evidence of the achievable benefits of applying the proposed model in manufacturing practice. Indeed, the case study demonstrated how the manufacturing and assembly process of a specific machine was optimised by simplifying the product structure, changing the adopted materials and creating more human-centred activities. The new solution is more sustainable due to time savings (−30%), cost reduction (−20%), reduced environmental impact (−25%) and improved UX (+30%).

Keywords: computer-integrated approach , design for manufacturing & assembly (DFMA) , human factors , sustainability , user experience

Nowadays industrial products require numerous aspects to be integrated and optimized contemporarily and interactively: mechanics, electronics, system control, management of material and information flows, interfaces, human-product interaction, as well as impacts on environment, costs and human factors. As a consequence, the design of industrial products has to combine new advanced functionalities and high performances by limiting production cost as well as environmental and social impacts. It means that the entire industrial system has to be designed looking towards sustainability. While attention to cost and environmental performance is not new, the analysis of social-related aspects is basically unexplored for industrial products. Achieving social sustainability includes forecasting human behaviours, actions and reactions, analysing how human beings interact with objects, tools, devices and interfaces, and assessing their physical and mental workload. The present research proposes an analytical approach to support the design of industrial products by providing an early sustainability assessment of the three aspects of sustainability (environment, cost and people). It adopts a feature-based approach and a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess the sustainability of the manufacturing and assembly processes and to support an easy and preventive analysis during product design. The paper presents the application of such method to industrial cases.

Keywords: Design for Sustainability , Feature-based Analysis , Key Performance Indicators , Sustainability Assessment , Sustainable Manufacturing

Design for serviceability begins with understanding the customer needs related to availability, reliability, accessibility and visibility, and aims at designing optimized systems where maintenance operations are easy and intuitive in order to reduce the time to repair and service costs. However, service actions are difficult to predict in front of a traditional CAD model. In this context, digital manufacturing tools and virtual simulation technologies can be validly used to create mixed digital environments where service tasks can be simulated in advance to support product design and improve maintenance actions. Furthermore, the use of human monitoring sensors can be used to detect the stressful conditions and to optimize the human tasks. The paper proposes a mixed reality (MR) set-up where operators are digitalized and monitored to analyse both physical and cognitive ergonomics. It is useful to predict design criticalities and improve the global system design. An industrial case study has been developed in collaboration with CNH Industrial to demonstrate how the proposed set-up is used for design for serviceability, on the basis of experimental evidence.

Keywords: Design for serviceability , Digital Manufacturing (DM) , Ergonomics , Human-Centred Design (HCD) , Sustainability , Virtual Simulation

In this paper, an analytic study of the subject of mechanical power transmission in HAWT wind turbine has been carried out. For the most part, the study analyzes the use of continuously variable transmission (CVT) in order to allow the turbine and the electric generator to couple, allowing in turn, an unremitting transmission ratio adjustment. In low-wind sites, the design criteria suggest an oversizing of the wind turbine in order to generate adequate electrical power even at low wind speed. The proposed solution enhances the space of operating points since it allows the electric generator to release the rotational speed from the turbine one (limited due to structural integrity). Employing a CVT transmission, the modulation system of the input power to the turbine starts operating at higher wind speeds when compared to a conventional direct-drive case: this corresponds with the possibility to fully exploit the wind power at a higher speed range, therefore maximizing the wind turbine's energy production. The analysis has showed that, in the case of CVT configuration, the annual energy yield increases of about 50% compared to direct-drive solution.

Keywords: CVT , Direct-drive turbine , Renewable energy , Wind turbine

A 4.60 m sailing yacht, made with a flax fiber composite and wood, has been refitted with the aim of hull weight reduction and performance improvement during regattas. The first objective was obtained with a lightening of internal hull reinforcements while the second one with a reduction of the maximum beam, in order to minimize the longitudinal moment of inertia. The refitting was first simulated via CAD-FEM interaction to establish the feasibility of the procedure and to verify the structural integrity. The resulting hull was then instrumented with strain gauges and tested under typical rigging and sailing conditions. Results obtained by the numerical modeling and measured from experiments were compared.

Keywords: Parametric design , Refitting , Sailing yacht

This paper presents a novel robot simulation tool, fully interfaced with a common Robot Offline Programming software (i.e. Delmia Robotics), which allows to automatically compute energy-optimal motion parameters, for a given end-effector path, by tuning the joint speed/acceleration during point-to-point motions whenever allowed by the manufacturing constraints. The main advantage of this method, as compared to other optimization routines that are not conceived for a seamless integration with commercial industrial manipulators, is that the computed parameters are the same required by the robot controls, so that the results can generate ready-to-use energy-optimal robot code.

Keywords: Computer-Aided Robotic tools , Delmia Robotics , Energy Optimization , Industrial Robots , Sustainable Manufacturing

The paper presents the design of an onshore Wave Energy Converter (WEC) named ALETTONE (At Least Energy Thanks To Neptune), which is characterized by a low cost mechanical architecture based on a four-bar linkage with mobility in a vertical plane. The lower link is a floating rocker arm moved by the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic forces exerted by the sea water, whereas the upper rocker arm is connected to a rotating electric generator via a transmission composed of either a single or a pair of one-way clutches coupled to a speed multiplier gearbox. Due to its simplicity, this WEC concept seems to be an interesting solution for energy generation in isolated locations. After a description of the overall design, the dynamic model of the system is presented, along with simulation results in case of monochromatic and panchromatic waves.

Keywords: Four-bar mechanism , Multibody simulation , Onshore generation , Wave energy converter

Analysis of human-related aspects is fundamental to guarantee workers' wellbeing, which directly limits errors and risks during task execution, increases productivity, and reduces cost [1]. In this context, virtual prototypes and Digital Human Models (DHMs) can be used to simulate and optimize human performances in advance, before the creation of the real machine, plant or facility. The research defines a human-centred methodology and advanced Virtual Reality (VR) technologies to support the design of ergonomic workstations. The methodology considers both physical and cognitive ergonomics and defines a proper set of metrics to assess human factors. The advanced virtual immersive environment creates highly realistic and interactive simulations where human performance can be anticipated and assessed from the early design stages. Experimentation is carried out on an industrial case study in pipe industry.

Keywords: Digital Human Model , Ergonomics , Human-Centred Design , Sustainable Manufacturing , Virtual Reality