Impact of reduced mass of light commercial vehicles on fuel consumption, CO2 emissions, air quality, and socio-economic costs

Cecchel, Silvia; Chindamo, Daniel; Turrini, Enrico; Carnevale, Claudio; Cornacchia, Giovanna; Gadola, Marco; Panvini, Andrea; Volta, Marialuisa; Ferrario, Davide; Golimbioschi, R.

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.09.081

Cited by 27 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The methodologies used to identify effective plans can be classified in two main categories [4]; [8]: (1) Scenario analysis [9][10][11] includes the source-apportionment and the multi-criteria approaches (e.g., ELECTRE [12]; MCDM [13]). Using this approach, a set of abatement measures is first defined by a panel of experts and stakeholders, and its impact is then assessed through the application of a chemical and transport model, with the possibility of modifying the proposed set of measures if they are deemed unsatisfactory under certain viewpoints.…”

Section: Air Quality Plans: the European State Of The Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Economic and Environmental Sustainability of a Regional Air Quality Plan

Carnevale

Ferrari²,

Guariso

et al. 2018

Sustainability

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Air quality plans must be demonstrated to be economically sustainable and environmentally effective. This paper presents a full cost–benefit and environmental analysis of a large regional air quality plan involving several different actions covering a large spectrum of fields, from domestic heating to passenger and freight transport, from electricity generation to agriculture. The impact of each action is analyzed looking at the possible energy savings, greenhouse gases (GHG) emission reductions, the improvement in air quality, and the consequent decrease in external costs, namely the reduced impact on population health. The analysis is performed by applying a flexible and fast computer tool (RIAT+) that allows for a rapid simulation of different pollutant emission scenario, to assess different air quality indices (AQIs) over a regional scale domain. The results show that, in most cases, the economic savings exceed the implementation costs and thus that these actions can be introduced in air quality plans for the domain under study. The reduced health and climate costs, though relevant in absolute terms, are, in general, only a fraction of the economic benefits of energy savings. This is not true for the measures acting on improvements in electricity generation, since a reduction in power plant emissions (generally with high stacks, far from populated areas) does not significantly impact the air quality inside the region. A shift in energy production to renewable sources can instead provide noticeable effects on GHG emissions. This research raises some interesting and general questions about the adequacy of the methodologies applied to attribute costs (and benefits) to actions, improving a variety of sectors that are different from the one in which the measures are applied here.

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Section: Air Quality Plans: the European State Of The Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Economic and Environmental Sustainability of a Regional Air Quality Plan

Carnevale

Ferrari²,

Guariso

et al. 2018

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The current use of castings for aluminum chassis structural applications is limited to a niche market for high performance cars. Nevertheless, automobile weight reduction is currently becoming an essential requirement to improve vehicle performance [1] and reduce fuel consumption and harmful emissions [2][3][4][5][6][7]. The environmental importance of reducing the weight of these aluminum components has been recently demonstrated by means of a life cycle assessment tool [8][9][10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental and Numerical Study of an Automotive Component Produced with Innovative Ceramic Core in High Pressure Die Casting (HPDC)

Cornacchia

Dioni

Faccoli

et al. 2019

Metals

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Weight reduction and material substitution are increasing trends in the automotive industry. High pressure die casting (HPDC) is the conventional casting technology for the high volume production of light alloys; it has recently found wide application in the manufacturing of critical components, such as complex and thin geometry automotive parts. However, the major restriction of this affordable technology is the difficulty to design and realize hollow sections or components with undercuts. An innovative way to further increase the competitiveness of HPDC is to form complex undercut shaped parts through the use of new lost cores that are able endure the high pressures used in HPDC. This paper investigates the use of innovative ceramic lost cores in the production of a passenger car aluminum crossbeam by HPDC. Firstly, process and structural simulations were performed to improve the crossbeam design and check the technology features. The results led to the selection of the process parameters and the production of some prototypes that were finally characterized. These analyses demonstrate the feasibility of the production of hollow components by HPDC using ceramic cores.

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“…The challenge is to structure the knowledge of various problem dimensions that the decision maker should evaluate in the planning process, such as i.e., the emission reduction costs, the effectiveness, the carbon footprint, the reduction of externalities and the social acceptability of the policies. To overcome these challenges, considering that the problem includes also a social, subjective aspect, a multi-objective decision approach (MOA) [7,8] could not respond to all the needs of the decision makers. At the same time, multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) [9,10], can be a viable option to consider different views on social and other subjective aspects, but lacks the ability to identify optimal solutions among wide sets of emission abatement strategies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining a Multi-Objective Approach and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to Include the Socio-Economic Dimension in an Air Quality Management Problem

2019

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Due to some harmful effects on humans and the environment, particulate matter (PM) has recently become among the most studied atmospheric pollutants. Given the growing sensitivity to the problem and, since production and accumulation phenomena involving both primary and secondary P M 10 fractions are complex and non-linear, environmental authorities need tools to assess their plans designed to improve the air quality as requested from environmental laws. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) can be applied to support decision makers, by processing quantitative opinions provided by pools of experts, especially when different views on social aspects should be considered. The results obtained through this approach, however, can be highly dependent on the subjectivity of experts. To partially overcome these challenges, this paper suggests a two-step methodology in which an MCDA is fed with the solution of a multi-objective analysis (MOA). The methodology has been applied to a test case in northern Italy and the results show that this approach is a viable solution for the inclusion of subjective criteria in decision making, while reducing the impact of uncertain expert opinions for data that can be computed through the MOA.

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Impact of reduced mass of light commercial vehicles on fuel consumption, CO2 emissions, air quality, and socio-economic costs

Cited by 27 publications

References 18 publications

Assessing the Economic and Environmental Sustainability of a Regional Air Quality Plan

Assessing the Economic and Environmental Sustainability of a Regional Air Quality Plan

Experimental and Numerical Study of an Automotive Component Produced with Innovative Ceramic Core in High Pressure Die Casting (HPDC)

Combining a Multi-Objective Approach and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to Include the Socio-Economic Dimension in an Air Quality Management Problem

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