Sustainable Design and Manufacturing 2019

How do we reduce plastic content in packaging? To answer this question, this paper did three case studies with packaging supply companies. It investigated the barriers and enablers of plastic reduction in packaging by using a grid. Factors have been summarised, categorised, and discussed. It is clear that there are certain enablers who can surely help companies to reduce plastic usage. Because of the size of the company, some barriers in one company can be enablers in others. The research findings can help companies take as a reference when they make strategies specifically for plastic reduction.

Design for X (DFX) issue in product design and development is generally considered in the late design process, e.g., detailed design phase. DFX issue plays a crucial role in determining cost, time and quality of product design. Due to the current DFX, research pays little attention to incorporate the industrial design, and the industrial design is rarely taken into account in the early design phase; design iteration is unavoidable. This paper identifies the new X issues requires in development of product life cycle design methodology, and then proposes a Design Merged X (DMX) framework to combine industrial design and product design with existing DFX methods. A process model of how to apply the DMX framework is also presented. An illustrative case is presented to show how the proposed DMX framework can be used to fulfill the new design process with considering the industrial design in the early design phase. Results of this study contribute new knowledge to DFX field.

After first clarifying the concept of sustainable biodesign innovation, this paper uses a case study of rapid, short-term interdisciplinary collaboration involving designers, engineers, and bioscientists to explore why this method is so energizing, stimulating, effective, and efficient. Using as its example a two-quarter Honors course at the University of California at Davis that prepared teams to compete at the international Biodesign Challenge in New York City in June 2018, it briefly explains the process of the course and the project of the team that competed and won two of six prizes at the competition. It then discusses and argues that the process of sustainable biodesign innovation is enhanced by interdisciplinary collaboration between designers, engineers, and bioscientists, owing to their complimentary theoretical knowledge, technical training, approaches, foci, and skills, and that this process can be utilized in industry for sustainable biodesign innovation.

This paper focuses on the fulfillment of fundamental human needs in the achievement of sustainable consumption and production (SCP). Here, we focus on the Human-scale development (HSD) theory proposed by Chilean economist Max-Neef, in which the following nine fundamental needs are introduced: subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, idleness, creation, identity, and freedom. In HSD, an important role is played by satisfiers, which are ways of fulfilling the above-mentioned fundamental needs in a particular context, such as climate and culture. From the standpoint of a producer, satisfiers are regarded as the starting points of product development for SCP. This paper introduces the opposite concept, referred to as a barrier—a factor that interferes with fulfilling fundamental needs. The purpose of this paper is to determine the satisfiers and barriers for younger people in Vietnam based on the results of needs-based workshops. Around 1200 satisfiers and barriers were extracted; however, barriers were largely equivalent to satisfiers. We found that the concept of satisfiers is useful to achieve SCP, because it is comprehensive, realistic, and provides an opportunity for social practice.

The ability to change aerodynamic parameters of airfoils during flying can potentially save energy as well as reducing the noise made by the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) because of sharp edges of the airfoil and its rudders. In this paper, an approach for the design of an adaptive wing using a multi-material 3D printer is shown. In multi-material 3D printing, up to six different materials can be combined in one component. Thus, the user can determine the mixture and the spatial arrangement of this “digital material” in advance in the pre-processing software. First, the theoretical benefits of adaptive wings are shown, and already existing adaptive wings and concepts are explicated within a literature review. Then the additive manufacturing process using photopolymer jetting and its capabilities to print multiple materials in one part are demonstrated. Within the scope of a case study, an adaptive wing is developed and the necessary steps for the product development and their implementation in CAD are presented. This contribution covers the requirements for different components and sections of an adaptive wing designed for additive manufacturing using multiple materials as well as the single steps of development with its different approaches until the final design of the adaptive wing. The developed wing section is simulated, and qualitative tests in a wind tunnel are carried out with the wing segment. Finally, the additively manufactured wing segment is evaluated under technical and economic aspects.

In this paper, we adopt a sociotechnical systems perspective and relying on six published cases of sustainable grassroots innovation (SGI) implementations worldwide, we develop a conceptual framework for analysing the dynamics (in both micro- and macro-level settings) of individual SGI initiatives. From the framework, indicatively, we select the attribute of (origin of) technological innovation, and we present trends in SGI trajectories with respect to the adoption of an established environmental technology, the development of an eco-innovation ‘in-situ’, and the infusion of novel technologies developed externally in order to fulfil specific SGI needs.

The selection of LCA datasets requires an understanding of the available datasets in a database and awareness about the uncertainties associated with the dataset selection. Therefore, a graphical presentation technique is introduced to support the communication of information about available datasets and uncertainties.

The paper displays extracts from the results of the Affordable LIghtweight Automobiles AlliaNCE (ALLIANCE) project, funded by the Horizon 2020 framework programme of the European Commission. In this regard, a door demonstrator, that is, currently in series production and mainly consists of steel materials, has been re-engineered making use of state-of-the-art aluminium alloys. The reference and lightweight doors have been assessed regarding the achieved weight saving. A cost calculation has been performed for both variants in order to evaluate the actual lightweighting cost of the aluminium door. The economical impact in the use phase has been taken into account by assessing the influences on the total cost of ownership (TCO). Furthermore, the environmental impact has been evaluated by a life-cycle assessment, taking into account the production, use and end-of-life phase. The methodological approach that has been used to perform the comparative assessment is part of the description.

Additive manufacturing is nowadays applied in many different fields, ranging from amateur prototyping to industrial production. In particular, small-sized stereolithographic apparatuses are widely spread due to their low cost, high accuracy and easiness of use. Despite the large diffusion of this technology, its sustainability aspects are not enough investigated, and a general lack of tools for the life-cycle assessment can be observed. The present paper proposes a framework for the development of a life-cycle impact metrics of stereolithography production in a certain area. All the contributions to the overall environmental impact of the manufacturing process are attributed to two main parameters, i.e. the amount of polymerised resin and the time of the process, thus allowing to easily integrate the results within the life-cycle assessment of a generic part. The parametrisation of the LCA also allows getting an estimation of the life-cycle impact from a digital representation of the part.

Prefabrication or off-site construction is claimed to be more sustainable than traditional methods when it comes to use materials and environmental impacts. After distinguishing the most important factors that make a construction system sustainable, this paper, which builds on an earlier paper (Moradibistouni et al. in evaluating sustainability of prefabrication methods in comparison with traditional methods. Springer, Berlin, 2018 [1]), begins with a literature review to compare prefabrication with traditional methods over the life span of a building. This helps in understanding the stages of a building’s life cycle where prefabrication might be more sustainable. A prefabricated house is then compared with three conventional houses in order to examine the energy efficiency of off-site compared with on-site construction. The primary results showed prefabrication is more sustainable than traditional methods regarding the two factors of water consumption and waste generation. However, when it comes to energy use and environmental pollution the differences between prefabrication and conventional methods are not great. This analysis shows it is not possible to compare prefabrication with other construction methods without considering other factors affecting the sustainability of construction such as choice of materials and design approaches. The other point to emerge was the lack of reliable data regarding the benefits and disadvantages of prefabrication over the life cycle of a building.

Ensuring the sustainable future of machining is becoming a growing concern in industry. Conventional machining approaches pose problems and cannot be continued at the level required in all three areas of sustainability—social, economic, and environmental. Therefore, alternatives to traditional techniques are being sought. One of the major barriers to sustainability in machining is the use of cutting fluids due to their high costs, harmful health effects, and environmental impact. However, cutting fluids play a vital role in the cooling and lubrication required during machining. In particular, the turning of difficult-to-machine materials is usually associated with high temperatures, high energy usage, and low productivity. Furthermore, the selection of cutting parameters currently prefers productivity to sustainability. This paper collates and presents the popular ideas that are presented in state-of-the-art literature for alternatives to cutting fluids and the optimization approaches that ensure the sustainable future of turning. The authors conclude that the future of sustainable turning of difficult-to-machine materials will comprise of closed-loop internal cooling of the insert, combined with external minimum quantity lubricant. However, to ensure that these technologies remain sustainable, without sacrificing productivity and part quality, optimization techniques should be applied. In particular, multi-objective optimization of environmental, social, and economic impacts should be undertaken in conjunction with intelligent algorithms.

Due to globalization in trade, the development of multimodal cargo shipments and the related transport needs have created a range of challenges. Interestingly, sustainability of multimodal freight transportation is still subject to minor consideration, on the grounds that economic interests are frequently positioned much higher than social or environmental objectives. This proposed research plan is needed to assess whether and to what extent the multimodal freight system is achieving the results in the sustainability dimensions: economic, social and environmental. Thus, it will carry out a critical appraisal of the multimodal freight transportation sector to provide an up-to-date knowledge on the sustainability challenges and the potential solutions through doctoral research. This paper structured to present a review of existing literature on freight transportation and multimodal freight transport highlighting the sustainability concerns with multimodal freight transport systems. It also highlights the gaps in knowledge with a justification on the need to address these gaps for the system to function optimally. It also covers the methodology that would be applied and the sources of data that would be reviewed to ensure the aim and objectives are clearly addressed. The paper concludes by discussing the significance of the expected findings in the light of sustainability in multimodal freight transport to the academia, policy makers and the freight transportation industry.

This paper presents a web-based portal for eco-improvement, called I-Tree Guidelines Portal, containing a set of guidelines and an integration with an eco-assessment tool, called I-Tree Configurator, used for assessing the environmental criticalities of a product, to suggest how to improve it and to evaluate the achieved environmental benefits. The I-Tree Configurator automatically processes the manually entered data about the analyzed product and shows the most environmentally impactful entities, i.e., components, transports, consumptions, etc. These are used to automatically filter the guidelines contained within the I-Tree Guidelines Portal in order to propose to the user only the most suitable ones to solve the main problems. The guidelines are structured into different parts, according to well-known conceptual design frameworks, such as Function-Behaviour-Structure (FBS) methods and similar, and they aim to solve problems in inventive ways, by including the principles of TRIZ, widely reviewed and contextualized to environmental problems. The idea generated for each guideline is immediately evaluated by assessing their environmental impact saving on the considered items, through the same I-Tree Configurator, and ranked to provide a base for decision-making.

This paper presents an interactive tool called I-Tree for supporting eco-assessment according to LCA approach. It works with two levels of detail. Through the introduction of a software framework working as a product configurator, LCA data are gathered in an aggregated form. The final impacts are updated in real time during Data Entry and final results about impacts visualized by infographics in order to have the clear picture in the most concise way. Indeed, infographics allow the user to understand where are the main criticalities of the products in terms of environmental impacts, according to the different life cycle phases and then deepen in a second round of information gathering only the components that affect more on the final result. Test on industrial case studies demonstrated important savings in terms of time and resources.

Many outputs of the application of eco-design principles and guidelines result in solutions that slightly differ from previous ones. Although the environmental advantages of new solutions are evident, the extent of achieved benefits fails to pursue the objectives of sustainable development. The latter requires disruptive change and the contextual demise of old generations of products with worse environmental performance. This is made possible just when environmental friendly product transformations positively capture the social and the economic dimension too, as these are accompanied by changes in people’s habits and fueled by customer satisfaction. However, few enterprises are available to engage in radical innovation, as it is generally understood as a risky endeavor. The situation is made more complicated by the relatively poor availability of design methods that target radical product redesign. Proactive design methods and thinking strategies are commonly in play when substantial design changes are expected, but no standard methodological reference has been established so far. Based on theoretical reflections and literature evidence, the paper outlines the need for new knowledge, as the foundation of new methodological frameworks to enable the design of products whose environmental, social, and economic sustainability is ensured.

Structured approaches to diminishing products’ environmental footprint include the identification of hotspots, e.g., lifecycle phases or aspects that feature criticalities in terms of environmental sustainability. Still in these approaches, measures are taken consistently by investing eco-design efforts to improve the situation in the identified hotspots. However, many products implement eco-design principles irrespective of hotspots, i.e., without taking into account the major sources of environmental footprint. A sample of products has been analyzed in terms of hotspots, and lifecycle stages are affected by the implementation of eco-design principles and achieved success. The study reveals that, while eco-design principles in the use phase of the product favor success, the consistency between the hotspot and the lifecycle stage does not modulate the relationship between implemented eco-design principles and success. As a result, while the identification of hotspots is a best practice as for the attempt to maximize environmental benefits brought on by eco-design initiatives, it plays a limited role in terms of customer’s acceptability and appreciation of new products.

As the potentials of technology grow, the embedding of IT advances in different fields and applications increases. A recent example is virtual reality and in particular the virtual product. The possibility of having a product in a virtual form allows creators and designers to efficiently manage the cycle of a product generation and evolution. The key advantage of the “virtual” is to have the product in advance, even in the conceptualization phase, with clear benefits in terms of consumptions of resources and, hence, sustainability. A potential customer could thus interact with a product-to-be and provide feedback about its look and feel, its usability, and, most of all, give an emotional response. In this context, the interaction between the virtual product and the future customer becomes a core point for the new approaches related to user-centred and user experience design, giving birth to a design methodology called “emotional design”. In particular, the study of facial expressions seems to be the more reliable and attractive aspect of it.

This paper presents a semi-automated state of the art related to the concept of circular economy and focuses on technical problems identification methods based on syntactic dependency patterns, for ameliorating supervised state of the art and patent intelligence. The data and information used in this paper were collected from patents and scientific publications dataset. Through parsing the patent text, very precise lists of recycling materials are automatically extracted without the user being an expert in the problems of the sector. An exemplary case dealing with circular economy is proposed, stressing what types of business areas are nowadays related the most from the materials that are being recycled. This paper contains the results of this analysis and the related comments.

With the emergence of the circular economy (CE) approach into business models, there is need for deeper understanding of resource loops activities and how current supply chains can support the development of emerging CE business models. However, there is still limited research addressing the conceptualization of closed loops in the supply chain literature. This work addresses this research gap and proposes a typology for closed loops that is independent from the type of product under concern. Our findings suggest that there are two types of closed-loop supply chains in circular business models. Further work is envisaged to understand how companies can effectively develop their closed-loop supply chains as part of their transformation towards a more circular business model.

In recent discussions and policies, circular economy (CE) has been perceived as a promising way to solve environmental problems caused by our current economic system. To become reality CE calls for extensive, systemic changes in the design and production of goods, in consumption patterns, and in the ways in which companies create value. Though the transition characteristics of circular economy are self-evident, thus far few researchers have analysed it from transition theory perspectives. Transition approach could greatly enhance our understanding of processes aiming to achieve CE, including barriers and incentives that might affect them. Finland has often been seen as a forerunner in the change towards CE. We organised four workshops to explore how Finland could promote the change towards CE. In this chapter, we describe and analyse outcomes of the workshops focusing on the looked-for characteristics of a CE transition process in Finland. The findings point to a direction of a purposive transition with coordinated action, shared use of resources and shared creation of knowledge.

Circular economy is the model the European Union opted for to make its production and consumption system more sustainable. Industrial symbiosis is one of its operational implementation strategies. This concept aims at redesigning industries supply chains by creating new interconnections between traditionally independent chains, new sources of raw materials and new market opportunities for wasted resources. This paper introduces an innovative methodology, developed within the SCALER project that aims at facilitating substitution synergies identification between cross-sectorial supply chains. Synergy ideas are automatically generated thanks to dedicated algorithms performing matching queries on input and output data of 17 industrial sectors. Data is generic and collected from publicly available sources. The methodology’s deductive approach has the benefit of proposing relevant synergy ideas for industries without asking confidential operating data. A total of 1000 relevant synergies were already identified. Development perspectives are to reinforce the methodology with additional technical data sets such as treatment technologies, geolocated facilities databases and European economic activity/waste codes.

Many studies have explored the integration of Circular Economy thinking within a business model context, however, researchers have yet to identify and demonstrate the full range of benefits and value that is available if organisations were to transition to a circular model. Through a literature review and analysis of ten case studies of sustainable businesses, this paper uncovers the categories and types of value that are available within a Circular Economy system and consolidates them into taxonomy and framework of value. Through the use of affinity mapping, the taxonomy of value identified and included: categories of value, tangible/explicit value, intangible/implicit value; methods and strategies for generating value and stakeholders for whom value is created. This paper outlines these values in more detail providing a clear starting point for organisations to realise the benefits that a Circular Economy system affords.

This paper investigates the key development trends related to the transition towards the circular economy and the roles of the major economies in this transition. Answers are sought for through analysing research articles, business papers and conference proceedings. Emerging technology areas and national emphases are identified by using a generative probabilistic model, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA). The analysis covers altogether about 10,000 references. We divide the references into four stages in the circular economy process: raw material production/collection and energy use; product design and manufacturing; product use; and end-of-first-life and closing the loop. The results from publication analysis are presented for China, European Union and the USA.

Among the various applications of graphene is the heating purpose due to its promising thermal conductivity. This paper presents a life cycle model of graphene, capturing the “cradle-to-gate” approach, focusing on energy consumption and environmental impact of graphene. The embodied energy consumption was calculated based on empirical data in scientific papers, patents and databases, while life cycle assessment modelling software was utilised for analysing its environmental impact. The result from the analysis shows that the embodied energy for the synthesis of 1 kg of graphene ranges between 264 and 304 MJ. Further analysis shows that 42% of graphene-embodied energy is consumed from powder preparation through to graphitisation process. Moreover, the result obtained from the modelling shows dust particles and CO2 emissions into air during graphene production. This paper should be followed by further study on graphene use and end-of-life phases to establish a comparison with the traditional heating materials.

Human activities threaten the sustainability of energy and environmental resources. One route to alleviate this is that all buildings need to be zero energy in operation. This paper discusses the results of simulating the energy use of a prefabricated accessory dwelling unit (ADU) for different construction scenarios in Wellington, New Zealand. The aim is to see whether it is possible given the construction constraints to achieve zero energy for space conditioning. The simulation was first done using ALF 3.2 software, developed specifically for New Zealand conditions. Changes in each scenario relate to using different thicknesses of Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) for walls and roof and considering different types of floor, together with different heating regimes. Using ALF 3.2 a total of 36 different scenarios were simulated to see how much energy the ADU needs during a year and where the main sources of energy loss and gain occur. The next stage was running the simulations while adding different degrees of thermal mass to selected designs to see the effect of mass on the ADU energy consumption. The last stage was amending the size of windows in the best performing designs in order to find the best balance between gains and losses through them. Simulation results showed that heating the whole ADU to 16 °C all day and using 165 and 215 mm SIPs panels for walls and roof, respectively, with the ADU sitting on a 150 mm insulated concrete slab delivers the best result, being very close to zero energy for space conditioning.

Additive manufacturing (AM), which includes different technologies, allows free-form parts to be produced flexibly by selectively depositing material layer after layer. Among the various AM processes, metal wire deposition (MWD), which uses a metal wire melted by a high-energy source as feedstock, has been found to be suitable for the manufacturing of low-complexity, medium-to-large components at relatively high deposition rates. Some industrial applications have been identified, despite the quality of the as-deposited surfaces, which usually require further finishing operations. Several researches have been focused on process optimization. However, there is still a lack of consolidated knowledge concerning the environmental impact and the energy efficiency of MWD, aspects that are critically surveyed in this paper. First, the unit process level is considered, and an analysis of the needed specific energy input, while the wire flow rate and the deposited materials are varied, is carried out. Second, a framework is proposed to assess the energy requirements under a cradle-to-gate perspective.

Energy consumption in industry, particularly in manufacturing SMEs, continues to be inefficient with identifiable waste electrical consumption in machines and associated technical services. Holistic approaches to energy management that engage both the owners and the operators of a process are needed to drive progress. This research shows that there is value in energy and resource optimisation and productivity to be gained in a manufacturing company through engaging with machine operators, providing live performance feedback and authorising local control of machine operations. This research investigated visible feedback mechanisms, including factual and social displays, in a limited industrial experiment in a manufacturing SME to demonstrate potential energy savings from changes in practice. Factual feedback on a set of milling machines is shown to provide savings of 2.9% of total energy consumption, and social feedback based on machine threshold levels is shown to deliver savings of 5.1% of total energy consumption. An additional non-energy benefit (NEB) of a 7.9% improvement in productivity was also observed. The research highlights the importance of identifying auxiliary (non-value added) energy use within production, such as idle energy consumption in machines, as an area with potential for significant reductions through low-cost changes in operational behaviour and procedures.

This paper presents a safe-by-design approach developed for enhanced inks containing nanomaterials for 3D inkjet printing. Manufactured nanomaterials, like aluminium oxides and zirconium dioxide, are increasingly used for additive manufacturing today. However, the impact and interaction of nanomaterials on human health and the environment are widely discussed today. Our approach aims to describe the safe and sustainable use of nanomaterials for 3D inks. We rely on well-characterised non-toxic nanomaterials; their properties are documented in safety data sheets. In order to identify possible exposure to humans and the environment, we investigate the development of inks and their application in the 3D printing process.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis is an important tool to estimate total costs incurred for Additive Manufacturing (AM) over the time of the useful life from the purchaser’s perspective. Thus, the paper on hand describes the application of the TCO model to different state of the art Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) machines. The application of the TCO model to AM aims at uncovering and integrating cost savings and sustainability benefits into procurement decisions. A generic TCO model for AM was developed and applied to three selected FDM printers. The true costs were identified with the help of historical costs, vendor data and results from measurements on material and energy consumption. The cost calculations showed that the value and distribution of TCO cost components highly depend on the type of FDM printer as well as on identified influencing factors. The study resulted in recommendations towards sustainability improvement and concurrent cost reduction in AM, such as the reduction of material waste. To unleash cost and sustainability advantages, it is recommended to optimise procurement decisions while disclosing all true costs and properties of the 3D printers at the time of the product selection.

Although additive manufacturing (AM) has offered proven ability to reduce waste when compared with traditional manufacturing techniques, however, AM processes such as fused filament fabrication (FFF) still poses some negative environmental and economic aspects in terms of generated waste. This waste comes from rafts, supports, or bases that are parts of the supporting structure necessary in the construction of proper 3D-printed parts. In addition, another source of waste comes from jobs that failed due to a variety of reasons as is common with 3D printing. One possible way to minimize the negative effect is to recycle this waste material. Through the usage of commercially available cutting mills and extruder equipment that are easily procurable, it is possible to recycle the waste and reuse it as a filament. In this context, this paper aims to experimentally investigate the feasibility of recycling 3D printing waste material, namely of ABS material which is a popular 3D printing material and to evaluate changes in the mechanical behaviour after each recycling cycle, while taking the performance of the virgin material as a reference point. The mechanical behaviour of the recycled materials was assessed as a function of obtainable tensile strength, toughness and thermal transition. The results show that the ABS filament shows great promise for recycling at least once and could lead to significant material and cost savings. In this work, it is possible to observe how many times ABS can be recycled and used as filament, without adding virgin material.

Direct digital manufacture and additive manufacture have allowed designers the ability to design components without the design limitations witnessed in subtractive manufacturing process routes. In particular, designers can now design parts that fully utilize material usage resulting in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly application of manufacturing technology. Within this context, designing and manufacturing bio-inspired components have the potential to increase both component functionality and optimize material usage. One such area of biomimicry with advantageous strength-to-weight ratio can be found in hedgehog spines. Within this study, hedgehog spines were redesigned to facilitate production through additive manufacture. In addition, with the use of finite element analysis to quantify the resulting compressive characteristics, the optimal internal geometry and septa spacing were determined. Also, a design of experiments study was conducted to determine which design features have the greatest influence on the resulting stress in the spine. The analysis concluded that the combination of longitudinal stiffeners and equally spaced septa give the spine its superior compressive strength.

The advent and subsequent explosive growth of hi-tech medical industry is one of the main features of the modern era. It is driven by the legitimate plea to apply smart healthcare environment for a broad range of working systems, entailing hospitals, schools, workshops, etc. In particular, smart healthcare offers a unique opportunity to optimise the interaction between the human and the medical system (equipment/tools and doctors) for diagnosis, monitoring and treatment measures, which certainly will decrease infections and disease’s transmissions. However, developing a reliable Internet of Things solution, to facilitate a seamless and flawless data transmission among smart assets, is an indispensable task to fully implement. Accordingly, the motivation for this paper is to develop an IoT technique for a non-invasive healthcare system to enable vast collecting and analysis of human vital data via a computer vision technique in order to reduce infections. In particular, concurrent IoT communication was designed for a mesh of three nodes, entailing a sensing node for heartbeat measurement, a vital data visualising node and a broker node. This was developed to guarantee a real-time visualisation of the vital data of the human/patient and it was enriched by an offline visualisation and online cloud visualisation via the broker node. Furthermore, an embedded software architecture was developed that offers a reliable solution to minimise communication latency and provides real-time response to acquired information. Also, the software design is applicable to easily interface with newly added nodes in the future to increase the scale of IoT mesh.

In this paper, MMAssist_II, a national Austrian flagship project for research, development and establishment of assistance systems is presented. The Assistance Units could be used as a toolbox for different applications. Besides a fundamental understanding of demands for such Assistance Units, also a demonstration in industrial production settings is part of the project. An extensive evaluation will describe the usability of the units. Therefore, a large group of 9 scientific partners and 16 industrial partners join the consortium. Assistance in production as an I4.0 topic is becoming increasingly important in connection with the ever-increasing demands on production (variety of variants and mass customization) and the continuously growing demand for qualified workers in Europe.

Aiming at the problem of knowledge asymmetry in supply chain enterprises in green supply chain management, this paper proposes a decentralized knowledge sharing framework based on blockchain and edge computing technologies. The security and reliability of the knowledge sharing framework are guaranteed by the security encryption, non-tamperability of the blockchain. Edge computing that provides edge intelligence services is integrated into the framework to meet the needs of the blockchain for distributed networks. Firstly, the concept of open green supply chain is introduced, and the model of knowledge creation processes of green supply chain enterprises. Then, the application prospects of blockchain and edge computing technologies in green supply chain management are illustrated, and a green supply chain management knowledge sharing framework based on these two technologies is proposed. Finally, an automotive enterprise is taken as an example to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed green supply management knowledge sharing framework.

The scientific theories of industrial metabolism (IM) and engineering evolution for manufacturing system play a fundamental role in the analysis, computation, and control of the flows of mass and energy in a manner of transparent accuracy and dynamic efficiency. Therefore, the systemic characteristics and evolutionary regulations of the industrial metabolism are analyzed and discovered through a new approach based on the bio-metabolic engineering. The new approach is to start with the pathway analysis (IMP) and the network building (IMN) of industrial metabolism. This research carries out fundamental and theoretical innovation in the science of industrial metabolism and engineering evolution for manufacturing, which acts as technical precondition and lays scientific foundation for establishing the green and smart manufacturing system.

Aiming at the complexity of carbon emission in blast furnace iron-making production process, the method of bio-metabolism flux balance is used to analyze the carbon flow calculation method, construct a metabolic flux network, solve the metabolic flux matrix, and carry out the evolution analysis of blast furnace iron-like biological metabolism. The results show that the metabolic flux evolution of the blast furnace iron-making system is completely feasible, which will help to establish a bridge between the microscopic mechanism and the macroscopic law, and understand and master the industrial metabolic mechanism of the manufacturing system.

In order to objective evaluation of resources efficiency and environmental impact of an iron and steel enterprise, it is necessary to carry out overall assessment about its green performance, and to analyze related indictors differences, so that more specifically to improve green performance of iron and steel enterprise. On the basis of constructing a quantifiable multi-level green evaluation indicators system, firstly, after processing of actual production data in iron and steel enterprises can obtain the judging value of green evaluation indicators, through compared the judging value with the industry basic values, it concluded the scores of every green indicators and reflected on the radar-graph, and then through the area and perimeter of two evaluation vector quantitative evaluated green performance of iron and steel enterprise and its indicators difference. Lastly, using radar-graph method can to carry on graphics intuitive evaluation and numerical comprehensive evaluation for the green evaluation indicators of three iron and steel enterprise, so that the iron and steel enterprises to clarify its position in the industry, and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of its own existence. For the first time applying radar-graph to the evaluation of green performance of iron and steel enterprise and its indicators difference, it has more intuitive visibility and more accurate quantitative evaluation.

Sleeve-base structure interference fits are widely applied as a prominent role in mechanical products. The sleeve parts are very vulnerable, so they are disassembled and repaired frequently. Unfortunately, the existing disassembly methods have great damage to those parts. How to achieve nondestructive disassembly for those components is a difficult problem in the field of remanufacturing. This research puts forward a dismantling method of interference fit of sleeve-base structure in the case of cooling excitation. Using liquid nitrogen to cool the contained part, cooling deformation is occurred and the interference fit is weakened, so that nondestructive disassembly is implemented. Taking the sleeve-base model as research objects, the transient heat transfer differential equations under liquid nitrogen cooling excitation are established, and transient temperature field is solved by Laplace transformation and numerical inversion; based on thermoelasticity, disassembly force equation is derived, and theoretical model of cooling excitation disassembly method is developed. A finite element simulation is done with the brass sleeve and 45# steel base model, and a comparison between it and the theoretical analysis is carried out. The results show that: (1) The simulation result of the temperature field has a good inosculation with the calculation of analytical model, and the error of disassembly force between finite element model and theoretical model is only 3.9%. (2) The curves function with disassembly force and cooling time of different interference connection models is obtained by the simulation analysis, which shows that interference fit is obviously weakened and the disassemble force is greatly reduced.

The paper discusses the methodology of the research on the kinematics of human gait by using MEMS sensors. The capability of the measurement system is presented. Especially, it is focused on the angular velocity data, which were measured by the gyro sensors and used to estimate the flexion—extension of joint angles of the knees. To describe the gait cycle the series of trigonometric Fourier and the function expressed by the sum of sines were applied. In order to do the synthesis, MATLAB package with CurveFit toolbox was used. The obtained by this means approximation functions were done for healthy people and with impaired locomotion system. The result data were summarized in the form of figures and in the table of significant parameters. Additionally, there is other measurement and analysis presented, which applies more sophisticated method. The example wavelet transform is used considering acceleration signals. Using MEMS sensors also collected these signals. In this particular case, the gait feature in the time domain can be examined. This approach leads to specific gait’s feature database creation. It will support the diagnostic of the pathology, by a comparison of gait patterns, which will be related to specific diseases. The patterns will be built by using chosen coefficients obtained by the analysis presented in this work.

3D printing is one of the fastest grooving technologies , used for parts manufacturing in the automotive industry. There are many printing technologies with different printing filaments ad different printing time. Printing time is correlated with the emission of particles and VOCs (volatile organic compounds). Researchers conducted analysis of VOCs emission during 3D printing. Each 3D printing device should have closed work chamber. The chamber should be constantly ventilated. The extracted air cannot get to the rooms where people are present. The air can be ejected to the atmosphere outside the buildings. The fresh air can be taken from the room where printer is located or directly from outside the building. 3D printing process is accompanied by the release of large amounts of waste heat. Temperature of extracted air is hot enough to apply any heat recovery units.

Modern hot water and heating systems are usually supported by energy which comes from the Sun. This additional energy is converted into useful form by solar collectors. The purpose of the work is to present a procedure, which determines the influence of specific design parameters on the solar collector thermal performance. Numerical simulations of the heat transfer process in the collector panel are studied by means of distributed-character modelling method (D-C) and additionally computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations. In order to validate the numerical models, experimental investigations are carried out. The thermal efficiency is determined according to EN ISO 9806:2013 and considered as output (effect) of the models. A statistical robustness test is introduced in order to indicate significant parameters (factors), which should be taken into consideration during the modelling, optimization and finally solar collector manufacturing.

LNG is a very good energy carrier and can be applied in a great many areas of economy, and its physico-chemical properties allow for using it as engine fuel in road vehicles. LNG infrastructure requires the integrated effort of LNG suppliers, owners and operators of stations, and potential owners of LNG-powered vehicles contrary to infrastructure of the majority of other transport fuels. LNG infrastructure properly implemented aims to minimise costs of LNG delivery chain, gas extraction, liquefaction and distribution, i.e. costs of LNG transport. Fuelling stations and their designs are independent from the LNG infrastructure map, except a liquefaction spot. The article presents the concept of deployment of filling stations and services of vehicles running on liquefied natural gas in Poland. Legal acts concerning exploitation of vehicles carrying LNG and vehicles running on LNG were analysed. An essential aspect of the elaboration includes presentation of variants of routes and locations of infrastructural facilities intended for services of vehicles running on LNG. Motorway rest areas that should be equipped with LNG supply stations were designated based on assumptions and calculations.

The growth of container trade at sea and inland ports has necessitated a better integration of water and land transport, which entails the need to expand the hinterland and accessibility from the land side. The infrastructure investment projects completed so far, aimed at improving the efficiency of transport in the hinterland, are the basis for creating new container logistics chains. In many ports of the European Union, the potential of inland waterway transport has been exploited for a long time as an integral component of sustainable transport. In the long run, it will not be possible to efficiently meet the growing demand for container transport in Europe by using only road and rail transport. Therefore, it is important to seek carriage capabilities in environment-friendly modes of transport. Looking into the case of the river-seaport of Szczecin, this author presents a concept of transport organization model involving inland waterway transport in container-based logistics chains. The analysis of the conditions for the functioning of such chains may provide a basis for developing directions to continue to develop the sea and inland ports in Poland.

Waste reception management processes and downstream waste management are a key component of reverse logistics in waste management. The paper discusses the problems of management in the reception of waste and cargo residues from ships at ports as a place where all kinds of pollution are generated, received and disposed of in parallel. The paper presents the role of reverse logistics in waste management and provides a description of selected legislation governing the reception of ship-generated waste and cargo residues from seagoing vessels. Furthermore, we have analysed the system for the reception of ship-generated waste and cargo residues at the sea-river port of Szczecin covering all ships using quays on its premises. Additionally, we discuss the importance of efficient management of the reception and downstream management operations for financial reasons, to minimise the cost to the logistics system and the environment with a view to protecting the environment.

Continuous depletion of land resources of metals and other raw materials (e.g., energy) motivates humanity to seek new sources of obtaining raw materials. An alternative source of the metal ores is the seabed. During the industrial mining of polymetallic nodules from the ocean floor, the waste cold is accumulated in nodules and seawater transported vertically from a depth of 4000–6000 m, where there is a constant temperature of 1–2 °C. Part of cold returns back into the ocean with water and the sediment. The cold, which is accumulated in separated nodules, can be utilized in exploitation conditions of a mining or transport ship. The chapter presents a methodology for estimating the amount of cold extracted from the seabed and accumulated in nodules stored in mining vessel. The purpose of the calculations was to estimate the waste cold. Its amount clearly indicates the possibility of using it and reducing the energy consumption of some equipment and installations on mining and transport vessels, particularly in tropical environments where the deposits of polymetallic nodules are located. The cold accumulated in the nodules may be a cold source for a number of service processes of the mining and transport vessels.

The longevity of road infrastructure is a crucial element of sustainable transportation. Although laws are present to prevent overweight vehicles damaging roads and highways which are not designed to withstand excessive loads, the authorities face practical difficulties in their enforcement given the lack of convenient vehicle weight measuring methods. A portable wireless axle load measuring system (PWALMS) is designed through structural analysis and is developed by employing strain gauges, which is capable of measuring 1 ton with a safety factor of 3.4. Four individual portable pads are kept on to which the vehicle is driven and each will measure the axle loads. A control unit then acquires the data which is wirelessly transmitted to a computer and is displayed through a GUI. An improved model is finally proposed to mitigate the transverse strain felt by strain gauges.

Disassembly of any end-of-life vehicle must be carried out in an appropriate manner while maintaining the safety of the environment. At each dismantling station, funds must be deposited that prevent, stop, or assist in the elimination of possible leaks of operating fluids. Due to the variety of vehicles removed from vehicles in order to improve the process of removing emergency leaks, universal means should be selected. The paper presents the results of the sorbent absorption capacity test for various operating liquids removed at the vehicle dismantling station. The results of the research have identified a sorbent that wants the highest efficiency in relation to the operational fluids present at the vehicle dismantling station. The reduction in the number and amount of sorbents used may reduce the impact of their emergency outflows on the environment.

The actions of terrorists, which are intensifying in recent years, result in strengthening the law, so that terrorist attacks can be better prevented and threats counteracted. These changes also included provisions on the transport of dangerous goods, among which a group of materials was selected that could become a tool in the hands of terrorists. These are high consequence dangerous goods. Consequences of an incident with the use of acetone tanker for terrorist purpose were presented. In order to analyze the impact of the threat, the ALOHA program was used. The conditions of the incident that took place in Berlin in December 2016 were adopted. The most likely result of the attack was burning acetone which formed a pool fire after unsealing the tank. The resulting thermal radiation would kill numerous people. The results of the simulation confirm the importance of the development of transportation and its security.

Fires of means of public transport may pose a serious threat to human health and life and cause damage to the environment and economic losses. The majority of them are fires of coaches. They represent approximately 80% of fires all means of public transport. Equipment materials may have an impact on the development of the coach fire. The greatest fire hazard can be caused by materials of coach seats: polyurethane foams and back cover materials. Flammability tests of such materials required by Regulation No 118 were carried out: vertical burning rates and melting behaviour of materials. The assessment of the fire hazard of coaches was made on the basis of the obtained results. The minimum requirements set out in Regulation No 118 of the Economic Commission for Europe of the United Nations (UNECE) [1] may not be sufficient to ensure the coaches fire safety.

Petrol stations are an important infrastructure that support the development of the transportation industry. This paper focuses on the analysis of the energy efficiency of renewables to cover energy demands for space heating and cooling of petrol station buildings, in Central Europe climate. The analysis was performed as a case study on a typical petrol station building located in urban area. Due to cold climate conditions and quite high surface area-to-volume ratio, the passive building standard of the building envelope was introduced. The study has been focused on the comparison of energy efficiency of the typical gas station building with two different variants of energy source for heating, cooling, and water heating—typical one and sustainable one. The typical solution includes the condenser gas boiler for heating and water heating modes, and the air-source heat pump for cooling mode. In the sustainable variant, a reversible air-source heat pump solution has been proposed that allows for space heating and cooling as well as for the preparation of hot water all year round. In this variant, four refrigerants (R600a, R290, R1234ze, and R134a) were taken into consideration. As a result of the conducted analyzes, a high efficiency of the energy source in the form of the reversible air-source heat pump was found. The use of the air-source heat pump allows for a significant reduction of the annual final energy demands in the analyzed petrol station building compared to the use of a traditional gas heat source.

Over 95% of new cars in the EU have air conditioning which significantly contributes the global warming by emitted flue gases, and of refrigerants with a high global warming potential. Evaluation of the environmental performance of refrigerants commonly used in mobile air-conditioning systems requires a lifecycle approach. With regard to global climate change, the total equivalent warming impact (TEWI) approach is generally used. The paper presents analyses of the TEWI indicator for automotive air-conditioning systems operating with selected refrigerants. The analysis of the total CO2 emission to the atmosphere which accompanies the work of mobile air-conditioning installations has been made. Leaks from the installation and the type of burned fuel have been taken into account. As indicated, they have a significant impact on the final value of the amount of carbon emission to the atmosphere. The division of the TEWI index into three basic components has been presented, and an analysis of their impact on the final CO2 emission has been carried out. Based on the carbon emission rates from the fuel combustion and the GWP refrigerant, the ecologically equivalent number of kilometers required to pass the vehicle corresponding to the emission of 1 kg of refrigerant to the atmosphere was calculated.

Over 95% of new cars in the EU have air conditioning which significantly contributes the global warming by emitted flue gases, and of refrigerants with a high global warming potential (GWP). The paper analyzes automotive conditioning systems in terms of energy efficiency. Currently, in these systems the most popular refrigerants are R134a (GWP = 1430) and R1234yf (GWP = 4). There are some controversies related to the impact of R1234yf on human health, especially during road collision and depletion of the system. The tendency in automotive air-conditioning systems is to shift from refrigerants that were safe for man but not to the environment, on ones that are pro-ecological but can be dangerous to human health and life. The article also presents an overview of the most popular synthetic refrigerants used in automotive air conditioning over several decades in Europa, like R12, R134a, and currently used in the new systems—R1234yf. Due to the environmental impact of refrigerants, the EU imposes tougher requirements for these substances. European Commission Directive 2006/40/EC provides that from January 1, 2017, only refrigerants with GWP lower than 150 may be used in air-conditioning system of new cars. This requirement is now met by synthetic refrigerant R1234yf and natural one R744 (carbon dioxide). The environmentally friendly (GWP = 1) and not posing a threat to humans, R744 seems to be a future-proof alternative to refrigerant R134a.