Teaching Students About The Environmental Impact Of Material Choice In Design
- Conference
- Location
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Chicago, Illinois
- Publication Date
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June 18, 2006
- Start Date
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June 18, 2006
- End Date
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June 21, 2006
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Materials
- Page Count
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16
- Page Numbers
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11.1224.1 - 11.1224.16
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--1116
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/1116
- Download Count
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623
Paper Authors
Helen McLachlan Granta Design
Dr Helen McLachlan is Granta's product manager for education. She also has a PhD in materials science from the University of Cambridge.
Patrick Coulter Granta Design
Dr Patrick Coulter is a director at Granta. He also has PH.D. in polymer science from the University of Cambridge.
Mike Ashby University of Cambridge
Professor Mike Ashby FRS is Royal Society Research Professor in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and is a Visiting Professor of Design at the Royal College of Art, London, UK. His interests include materials selection in design, process modelling and the study of the properties of composites and foams. He has written and co-written leading textbooks in the field, as well as over 200 papers on mechanisms of plasticity and fracture, powder compaction, mechanisms of wear, methodologies for materials selection, and the modelling of material shaping processes, among other topics. He is also co-founder of Granta and directs development of Granta's CES EduPack.
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
Teaching Students About The Environmental Impact Of Material Choice In Design
Abstract Engineers make things out of materials and the more things they make, the greater the damage to the environment. Today’s student engineers need to know how to minimize this environmental damage through their choice of materials.
This paper presents a rational, practical methodology for achieving environmentally sound material selection. It is well understood that there are four phases to the life cycle of materials: material production, manufacturing, use, and disposal. Each phase has an impact on the environment. By limiting the impact of the most dominant of these life phases, a product becomes more “green”. To assist both teaching and implementation of the methodology, a software tool, the new Eco Edition of CES EduPack, is discussed. The tool has three teaching levels: Level 1 introduces environmental factors such as embodied energy, CO2 creation, and recyclability for around 60 of the most common materials. More materials and environmental parameters are added at Level 2. The third and highest level, Level 3, has over 70 properties for over 3,000 materials allowing material optimization for real designs on economic, environmental, and technical grounds. The method is illustrated with case studies.
The Problem
The nature of the problem is brought into focus by examining the materials lifecycle, sketched in Figure 1. Ore and feedstock are processed to give materials; these are manufactured into products that are used, and, at the end of their lives, disposed, a fraction perhaps entering a recycling loop, the rest committed to incineration or landfill. Energy and materials are consumed at each point in this cycle (we shall call them “phases”), with an associated penalty of heat, gaseous (CO2, SOx, NOx), liquid and solid waste. Three important questions arise from this picture and none have obvious answers: How much damage, on some sort of absolute scale, does each of these wastes represent? Where in the cycle does the damage occur? And if we know the answers to the first two questions, how do we select materials to minimize the impact?
McLachlan, H., & Coulter, P., & Ashby, M. (2006, June), Teaching Students About The Environmental Impact Of Material Choice In Design Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--1116
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