Critical factors affecting life cycle assessments of material choice for vehicle mass reduction

Hottle, Troy A.; Caffrey, Cheryl; McDonald, Joseph; Dodder, Rebecca

doi:10.1016/j.trd.2017.08.010

Cited by 35 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(205 reference statements)

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“…The automotive industry is under a growing volume of regulations, related to safety and security, emissions, recyclability and other aspects [1]. These legislations can change noticeably from one country to the next, but are usually in line with the policies and objectives of the governments and the society.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explorative Study on the Use of Curauá Reinforced Polypropylene Composites for the Automotive Industry

et al. 2019

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The automotive industry is under a growing volume of regulations regarding environmental impact and component recycling. Nowadays, glass fiber-based composites are commodities in the automotive industry, but show limitations when recycled. Thus, attention is being devoted to alternative reinforcements like natural fibers. Curauá (Curacao, Ananas erectifolius) is reported in the literature as a promising source of natural fiber prone to be used as composite reinforcement. Nonetheless, one important challenge is to obtain properly dispersed materials, especially when the percentages of reinforcements are higher than 30 wt %. In this work, composite materials with curauá fiber contents ranging from 20 wt % to 50 wt % showed a linear positive evolution of its tensile strength and Young's modulus against reinforcement content. This is an indication of good reinforcement dispersion and of favorable stress transfer at the fiber-matrix interphase. A car door handle was used as a test case to assess the suitability of curauá-based composites to replace glass fiber-reinforced composites. The mechanical analysis and a preliminary lifecycle analysis are performed to prove such ability.The light-weighting of a vehicle can be achieved by design changes, modification of the construction processes or the use of light engineering materials [2,5]. In addition to the above-mentioned regulations, the automotive industry has also to fulfill new regulations related to the end of life of the vehicles. Such regulations, like the European Union (EU) End of Life Vehicle directive, restrict the amount of vehicle that can be landfilled at its disposal. This directive enforces recovering and reusing at least 95% of the vehicle [6,7].The automotive industry has explored alternatives to steel that provide the required mechanical properties while being lighter. These materials include metals like aluminum or magnesium, polymers like polyolefin, or composite materials like glass fiber or natural fiber-reinforced polymers. Moreover, alternative materials must show technical, economic and environmental performances [2].The use of natural fiber-reinforced polymers has caught the attention of automotive industry, due to certain reasons. On the one hand, natural fibers come from renewable resources, locally available and comparatively cheaper than mineral fibers [8][9][10]. On the other hand, natural fibers are lighter than glass fibers, and thus, natural fiber-reinforced materials tend to show higher specific properties [11]. Nowadays, the use of natural fiber-reinforced composites has increased [9]. These materials are used for globe boxes, door panels, seat coverings, seat surfaces, trunk panels, trunk floors, spare tire covers, insulation, headliners, or dashboards [9,12]. The use of natural fiber-reinforced composites has been limited to non-structural or semi-structural purposes, and usually as an alternative to glass fiber-reinforced materials [9,12,13]. The most common natural fibers used as reinforcement in the automotive industry are jute, ...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explorative Study on the Use of Curauá Reinforced Polypropylene Composites for the Automotive Industry

et al. 2019

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“…Emissions associated with vehicle manufacturing are also influenced by material choice, where there is often a trade-off, with lighter materials desired to reduce fuel consumption often being more energyintensive to produce [124]. Further, the increasing penetration of electric vehicles increases the importance of decarbonizing the electricity supply [120,125].…”

Section: Me In Vehiclesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fuel combustion is often assumed to cause 80%-88% of the life cycle emissions of internal combustion engine vehicles [124], resulting in a predominant focus on improving on-board energy efficiency over other improvements. In reality, direct emissions of vehicles account only for two thirds of road transport related emissions in the US, the rest are mainly associated with fuel production, vehicle manufacturing and maintenance, and construction, operation and maintenance of road infrastructure [126].…”

Section: Me In Vehiclesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the one hand, the desire to decrease fuel consumption has prompted a shift to light-weight designs and materials, which has been facilitated by steady improvements through computer-aided design and in material properties [124]. On the other hand, the collision-advantage of relatively larger vehicles and the introduction of more ancillary, computing, and safety components, such as airbags, anti-intrusion bars, air conditioning, electric windows, entertainment units, and electronics have increased vehicle mass [124]. Shifting the vehicle fleet to smaller cars would reduce fuel consumption and material requirements at the same time.…”

Section: Lifetime Extensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Material efficiency strategies to reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with buildings, vehicles, and electronics—a review

Hertwich

Ali

Ciacci

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

256

156

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As one quarter of global energy use serves the production of materials, the more efficient use of these materials presents a significant opportunity for the mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the renewed interest of policy makers in the circular economy, material efficiency (ME) strategies such as light-weighting and downsizing of and lifetime extension for products, reuse and recycling of materials, and appropriate material choice are being promoted. Yet, the emissions savings from ME remain poorly understood, owing in part to the multitude of material uses and diversity of circumstances and in part to a lack of analytical effort. We have reviewed emissions reductions from ME strategies applied to buildings, cars, and electronics. We find that there can be a systematic trade-off between material use in the production of buildings, vehicles, and appliances and energy use in their operation, requiring a careful life cycle assessment of ME strategies. We find that the largest potential emission reductions quantified in the literature result from more intensive use of and lifetime extension for buildings and the light-weighting and reduced size of vehicles. Replacing metals and concrete with timber in construction can result in significant GHG benefits, but trade-offs and limitations to the potential supply of timber need to be recognized. Repair and remanufacturing of products can also result in emission reductions, which have been quantified only on a case-by-case basis and are difficult to generalize. The recovery of steel, aluminum, and copper from building demolition waste and the end-of-life vehicles and appliances already results in the recycling of base metals, which achieves significant emission reductions. Higher collection rates, sorting efficiencies, and the alloy-specific sorting of metals to preserve the function of alloying elements while avoiding the contamination of base metals are important steps to further reduce emissions.

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“…If the motivation for lightweight design is the reduction of the environmental impact of a product, for instance, the amount of CO2 emissions produced over the entire lifecycle might be an appropriate criterion for assessing the impact (Mayyas et al, 2017). If the motivation is to reduce the product's costs during use, fuel efficiency is one possible factor for assessing the reduction (Hottle et al, 2017). Furthermore, different motivations for lightweight design may occur simultaneously during the product-development process, thus yielding a wider set of diversified criteria.…”

Section: Problem Statement and Goalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Derivation of Criteria for Identifying Lightweight Potential – A Literature Review

Laufer¹,

Roth²,

Binz³

2019

Proc. Int. Conf. Eng. Des.

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Lightweight potential is a powerful indicator – but not as powerful as it could be. Current methods for analyzing a product's potential to be reduced in mass only deal with a few of the most important criteria for lightweight design. The amount of literature dealing with lightweight design is significant, yet it can help to understand these versatile criteria. Firstly, the literature on this topic will therefore be reviewed to derive a broad set of criteria used in contemporary lightweight design. Secondly, a further review will reveal the criteria used to derive lightweight potential. Subsequently, both sets will be compared to identify the missing criteria used for the derivation of lightweight potential. This will support designers in two ways. On the one hand, matching and combining both criteria sets will enable the most representative criteria for a particular design case to be chosen, thus leading to a more comprehensible derivation of lightweight potential. On the other hand, the combination set will provide a basis for designers and design teams to refine their understanding of their own motivations for conducting lightweight design.

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Critical factors affecting life cycle assessments of material choice for vehicle mass reduction

Cited by 35 publications

References 60 publications

Explorative Study on the Use of Curauá Reinforced Polypropylene Composites for the Automotive Industry

Explorative Study on the Use of Curauá Reinforced Polypropylene Composites for the Automotive Industry

Material efficiency strategies to reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with buildings, vehicles, and electronics—a review

Derivation of Criteria for Identifying Lightweight Potential – A Literature Review

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