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LCA. is becoming one of the main instruments for isolating environmentally winning alternatives in industrial decisions. It is also true that in the car industry decisions have to be taken more and more quickly since the time to market in the last years has been strongly reduced. This is one of the reasons that fast LCA. techniques are being taken in consideration. This work illustrates some guidelines for fast LCA. techniques to be used, in well defined situations, for evaluating different recycling opportunities.

One of the problems of a LCA is the complexity of the considered systems. Results depending strongly on the boundary conditions. More appropriate is to parameterise the LCA and enable it for variations. With that, the Life Cycle Modeling and Simulation leads to a deeper understanding of the examined system. Design parameters, like the geometry or the material of the part can be varied as well as the mass and energy flow in the process chain or methodological parameters. This is especially necessary in the early stage of the design process as a tool for sensitivity analysis and optimisation of products. A dominance analysis ensures that the complexity of the model is suitable for goal and scope of the study.

This paper presents an analysis of the Vehicle End of Life (VEOL) trends in the United States based on the VEOL model developed by the Vehicle Recycling Partnership (VRP), a consortium between Chrysler Corporation, Ford Motor Company and General Motors. The model, developed interactively with the VRP by the Center for Environmental Quality (CEQ) at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), accounts for the economic and the material transfer interactions of stakeholders involved in the VEOL process; the insurance valuation, salvage pool, dismantling, rebuilding, maintenance and repair, shredding, and landfilling [Bustani, et al., 1998]. The scenarios analyzed using the VEOL model consider regulations from Europe as well as the U.S. market factors and business policies.

The complexity of environmental problem is characterised by the typical difficulty to find an unique quantitative measure for “being green”. Environmental damage cannot easily be compared with parameters such as cost or time that are “hard” metrics. However, techniques like Life Cycle Assessment should make it possible comparing products based on the basis of their environmental profile. In this study a modelled approach that allows to integrate Life Cycle Assessment considerations within multi-criteria analysis methodology is described: this integration is clearly exemplified by a simple software tool called ECOCOST. ECOCOST represents an effort to join different field of evaluation, other than environmental, to the Life Cycle Assessment: then environmental results emerged from LCA can be matched with other kind of evaluation, economical and technical in particular.

This paper introduces the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) optimization model, where LCC is expressed as a function of controllable design parameters. The LCC model is enhanced with the novel concept of considering the target value of the functional characteristic as a decision variable so that it is optimized on the basis of life-cycle considerations. Most of the LCC model in literature considers only one objective at a time. This paper proposes a comprehensive model, which is capable of considering multiple objectives simultaneously. This model, is solved with the help of Goal Programming.

While the results are generally the most exciting aspects of an LCI study, the details of the LCI model that generates the results are equally significant; particularly when modeling the life cycle of an automobile. The modeling challenges faced in conducting the US AMP LCI of a mid-sized vehicle based on the 1995 Lumina, Intrepid and Taurus are highlighted. The number of parts (over 20,000), supply chain complexity, materials composition, and the demanding set of OEM requirements for model features required special LCI methods and solutions. The LCI model and selected results are compared with previous studies, and recommendations for improvements in the USAMP LCI model are also provided. This paper is one of six SAE publications discussing the results and execution of the USCAR AMP Generic Vehicle LCI. The papers in this series are (Overview of results 982160, 982161, 982162, 982168, 982169, 982170).

The Institute for Polymer Testing and Polymer Science of the University of Stuttgart has been investigating automotive parts, structures and cars during their life cycle in plenty cooperation with the European automobile producers and their suppliers for the last 9 years. Therefore a holistic approach has been developed to combine tasks from technique, economic and environment in a methodology called Life Cycle Engineering (LCE). The goal is to find a way to support designer and engineers as well as police makers and public with this three-dimensional interrelated information to have the possibility to manufacture future products in a more sustainable way without loosing contact two the traditional parameters technique and costs.

The United States Automotive Materials Partnership Life Cycle Assessment Special Topics Group (USAMP/LCA) has conducted a Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) using a suitable set of metrics to benchmark the environmental (not cost) performance of a generic vehicle, namely, the 1995 Intrepid/Lumina/Taurus. This benchmark will serve as a basis of comparison for environmental performance estimates of new and future vehicles (e.g. PNGV). The participants were Chrysler Corporation, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, The Aluminum Association, The American Iron and Steel Institute, and the American Plastic Council. The study was strictly a life cycle inventory. The approach was to quantify all suitable material and energy inputs and outputs, including air, water, and solid wastes. The inventory covered the entire life cycle; from raw material extraction from the earth, to material production, parts manufacture, vehicle assembly, use, maintenance, recovery/recycling, and disposal.

A Life Cycle Management (LCM) model was used to compare two plastic protective seat cover alternatives for a vehicle. Protective seat covers are temporary plastic covers placed over the seats of a vehicle to protect them from soiling during the assembly process. A contoured all-plastic seat cover was compared to a plastic seat cover with elastic. The results indicate that use of the contoured seat cover results in cost savings of $136,000 annually for this particular model year vehicle. In addition, the contoured seat protector contains at least 25 percent post-consumer recycled (PCR) content and is recyclable, while the alternative cover contains no PCR and is not recycled. This case study concludes that cost savings can be achieved while increasing the recycled content and recyclability of an item necessary in the production of vehicles. By using the all-plastic seat protector, 90,000 pounds of waste can be diverted from landfills annually.

A methodology for evaluating life cycle cost of electric vehicles (EVs) to their buyers is presented. The methodology is based on an analysis of conventional vehicle costs, costs of drivetrain and auxiliary components unique to EVs, and battery costs. The conventional vehicle's costs are allocated to such subsystems as body, chassis, and powertrain. In electric vehicles, an electric drive is substituted for the conventional powertrain. The current status of the electric drive components and battery costs is evaluated. Battery costs are estimated by evaluating the material requirements and production costs at different production levels; battery costs are also collected from other sources. Costs of auxiliary components, such as those for heating and cooling the passenger compartment, are also estimated. Here, the methodology is applied to two vehicle types: subcompact car and minivan.

This paper describes a the improvement of process where a lubrication system had been designed in an era when environmental regulations were more lax and did not require sophisticated methods of feeding lubricant to the work, in short when “tin can” lubrication methods were adequate. The particular process is pilger rolling and before the improvements were made the process was considered an environmental hazard, by the department of labour, when in production. By redesigning the lubricant nozzles with information gleaned from numerical model studies of laminar jet flow from different shaped orifices it was possible to redesign the nozzles so that the environmental safety hazard was completely reduced. An added benefit was the reduction in the amount of lubricant needed, from 300 litres per minute to 30 litres per minute. This reduced the oil and power requirements. The product quality was also equaled or increased and downtime was decreased, thereby increasing productivity.

In the last century cars have become almost irreplaceable objects in modern society. There are almost half a billion cars circulating around the world while about thirty years ago there were about half this number. Most experts agree that the goal of a billion isn't so far away. Nevertheless one must consider that car production and use environmental impact has been strongly improved. This is mainly due to a greater consciousness of manufacturers and clients towards environmental effects of high living standards. This work not only points out the state of the art of the actual situation but also focuses on the improvements that can be reached in a near future.

A method for the site-dependent Life Cycle Impact Assessment of toxic air pollutants from traffic emissions is presented which classifies emission sites in terms of their radial population density distribution and the annual mean wind speed within a circle of radius 100 kilometers. Taking the emission of particulate matter from vehicles in Germany as an example, estimates for the area-integrated product of population density and incremental pollutant concentration are derived for each class of emission sites. Results show a spread of about a factor 5 between the highest and lowest values caused largely by variations of the population density.

Important opportunities exist to improve the resource and environmental impacts of the automobile over its product life cycle. The use of aluminum in automobile designs is increasing, which offers ways to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions during vehicle use via light weighting. However, to fully capture lifecycle reductions in environmental loadings and impacts, material suppliers, parts manufacturers and automakers must also understand which of their own operations and facilities offer opportunities for environmental improvements through investments in process or technology advances. Quantifying these opportunities across the comprehensive life cycle of vehicle systems and components can be a challenging task because of the complexity of today's extended supply chain. For instance, even quantifying opportunities from the front end-aluminum material supply-requires gathering, verifying and acting upon information from facilities throughout the world.

Many industrial applications have been proposed for cradle-to-grave assessment of the environmental burdens of products, including technology design and optimization, technology strategy, marketing and in lobbying regulators. Many industrial firms, including all European automobile producers, have developed life cycle assessment competences during the 1990s, and many have begun applying these to business decisions. In this paper the patterns of adoption of life cycle approaches in car producers are analyzed, together with their impacts on innovation. The paper concludes that while life cycle assessment provides a useful new framework for problem-solving, car producers will face a number of difficulties in extracting value from life cycle-based innovations.

There is a broad consensus that the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) framework according to IS0 14040-14043 is very useful for pursuing the vision of sustainable development in product design and optimization. However due to the necessary effort involved, in practice the application of this framework to complex products like automobiles is very limited. This article deals on the one hand with methodological approaches for simplifying LCA in a systematic way. On the other hand it presents the existing method of the Iterative Screening LCA as an already sound and efficient simplifying method, suitable for assessing complex products.

These days, environmental issues have become more and more of a concern in the automobile industry. Especially, one of the environmental impact evaluation methodologies currently being developed and standardized is the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA is a quantitative method for evaluating the environmental impact of a product throughout its life cycle. Our purpose for studying LCA is to choose environmentally friendly materials. We had used polyurethane (PU) as the material for the bumper fascia. We intended to adopt polypropylene (PP) as a replacement for polyurethane and decided to conduct a comparative LCA for the bumper assembly using PU and PP fascia. In this paper, the total life cycle (raw material, manufacturing, transportation, use and end of life) of the bumper will be studied through inventory analysis, impact assessment and interpretation.

In the past there has been a concentration on performing LCAs of car components. Based on the increasing experience and know-how gained in the past by performing LCAs of car components truck designers get the chance to make a statement about the ecological impact of each alternative. The most significant difference between LCAs of car and truck components is the use phase. This paper describes a Life-Cycle-Assessment (LCA) of different air deflection systems made of composite materials. The actually used system is produced by Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) while a possible alternative could be made out of Sheet Molding Compound (SMC). The calculations have shown that there exists a potential to improve the ecological profiles of composite components by replacing glass fibers with natural fibers.

In accordance with ISO 14040 and ISO/FDIS 14041, different recycling scenarios of aluminum car body sheet have been examined by an LCA study, including shredding, sink-float sorting and remelting; dismantling and remelting; combination of both techniques. The study was based on the aluminum car body of an Audi A8. For benchmarking reasons, these different life cycle scenarios were compared with a conventional steel car body fulfilling the same functions and with a lightweight steel body with 25 % weight reduction. It was found that for most of the selected impact categories, the aluminum car body life cycle which ends in shredding, sink-float sorting and remelting compares favourably even with a steel light-weight construction. On the other hand, dismantling and remelting and the more realistic combination of both techniques show advantages in comparison with the shredding and sink-floating technique.

The automobile painting is a very energy and emission (solvents) intensive process step in the production of automobiles with regard to the small amount of paint applied to the car body. The awareness has risen that cleaner production technologies must substitute end-of-pipe control technologies. If these technologies strive for being a competitive option in corporate decision-making process, not only their environmental but also their technical and economical performance has to be on the same or better level compared to conventional technologies. The approach of Life-Cycle Engineering (LCE) by PE and IKP investigates technical, environmental and economical aspects of products and technologies. It is developed to a simulation tool to analyse weak points and optimisation potentials as well as to support product and technology development in the painting industry.