Abstract
In the present study, a holistic End-of-Life (EoL) Index is introduced to serve as a decision support tool for choosing the optimal recycling process among a number of alternative recycling techniques of CFRP waste. For the choice of the optimal recycling process, quality of the recycled fibers as well as cost and environmental impact of the recycling methods under consideration, are accounted for. Quality is interpreted as the reusability potential of the recycled fibers; that is quantified through the equivalent volume fraction of recycled fibers that balances the mechanical properties of a composite composed of a certain volume fraction of virgin fibers. The proposed Index is offering an estimated balanced score, quantifying a trade-off between the reusability potential of the recycled fibers as well as the cost and the environmental impact of the recycling methods considered.
Highlights
Fiber reinforced composites are currently being extensively used in several industry domains, such as the aviation, the automotive and the wind energy sector, due to their exceptional properties
Quality is interpreted as the reusability potential of the recycled fibers and the importance weights of the above aspects on selecting the optimal process are determined by the engineer as initial input for implementing the Index
For the sake of simplification, the application of the rule of mixtures (ROM) for the present analysis assumes that the CFRP component considered is a unidirectional composite comprising of aligned and continuous fibers, either virgin or recycled ones; to implement the proposed Index, a typical aerospace epoxy-based material with a 65% carbon fiber volume fraction was considered as the functional unit of the analysis [53]
Summary
Fiber reinforced composites are currently being extensively used in several industry domains, such as the aviation, the automotive and the wind energy sector, due to their exceptional properties. One of the biggest challenges posed by these materials is their recycling It is worth mentioning as an example that by the year 2050, the aviation industry only, will have generated approximately 500 k tones of accumulated CFRP waste resulting from both the production (scrap) and the end-of-life phase of the already-flying aircrafts [1]. Despite the fact that some of the composite waste can be recovered as energy to generate electricity, the drawbacks of this method outweigh that advantage by far [5]. Both landfill and incineration, do not involve material
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