Comparison of Tools for Simplified Life Cycle Assessment in Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

AbstractCurrent trends indicate that Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools are going to be extremely important for companies in the forthcoming years. New laws and standards are increasingly taking environmental aspects into account but, for non-experts in LCA, it can be difficult to find software suited to their studies. This paper aims to analyze the ability of simplified LCA software to combine a simple and convenient interface with relevant and exploitable results. This work tries to show which LCA tools are usable in preliminary analysis performed by non-experts like students in mechanical engineering or designers. Various assessments were studied with different tools: ArtoACV, Ecodesign Studio, Bilan Produit, and Umberto LCA+. An evaluation grid was drawn up to compare the tools according to objective and non-objective criteria. The case studies were carried out separately in order to remain as objective as possible. In this paper, the studies were made by two students in the first year of a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering at INSA Toulouse. This paper shows that the four software packages enable a preliminary LCA to be finalized and propose graphs and tables for a better understanding of results. Even though tools generally allow the users to reach the same conclusions, some parameters persist that can strongly influence the result. Designers should keep in mind that results may not be consistent for their projects and may depend strongly on the hypothesis of the study.KeywordsLife Cycle Assessment (LCA)ToolsMechanical engineeringSimplified LCAComparison