Diesel Engine Block Remanufacturing: Life Cycle Assessment

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There has been a growing interest in remanufacturing during the past decade, since it offers many advantages to our economy. However, the qualification and quantification of the benefits of remanufacturing compared to original manufacturing remain confusing to us due to the difficulties of data collection in complex production processes and the lack of accurate and convinced evaluation method. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a “cradle to grave” approach for H.-c. Zhang (*) School of Mechanical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China Department of Industrial Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA e-mail: hongchao18@163.com; hong-chao.zhang@ttu.edu T. Li • Z. Liu • Q. Jiang School of Mechanical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China e-mail: litao_dlut@163.com; liuzhichaojizhi@163.com # Springer-Verlag London 2015 A.Y.C. Nee (ed.), Handbook of Manufacturing Engineering and Technology, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-4670-4_111 3313 assessing industrial products and systems, which enables to estimate the cumulative environmental impacts resulting from all stages in a product life cycle. In this book, taking a diesel engine as a case study, a comprehensive LCA is conducted for remanufactured diesel engines, aiming to identify the negative impact on the environment during the whole life cycle and to analyze the potential that remanufacturing had in terms of energy savings and environment protections. In order to demonstrate the environmental benefit of remanufacturing, the environmental impacts achieved in the study are compared with a newly manufactured counterpart. The results show that remanufacturing of a diesel engine has lesser contribution to all the environmental impact categories when compared to its original manufacturing; the greatest benefit is EP which is reduced by 79 %, followed by GWP, POCP, and AP which can be reduced by 67 %, 32 %, and 32 %, respectively. Introduction Background Resource and Environmental Problem Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main cause of global warming – increased by 3 % in 2011, reaching an all-time high of 34 billion tons in 2011. In 2011, China’s average per capita CO2 emissions increased by 9 % to 7.2 t CO2 (Jos et al. 2012). The International Energy Outlook 2013 (IEO2013) projects that world energy consumption will grow by 56 % between 2010 and 2040, and the industrial sector continues to account for the largest share of delivered energy consumption; the world industrial sector still consumes over half of global delivered energy in 2040 (IEA 2013). Statistics show that according to the present automobile growth, the volume of the end-of-life automobiles will reach up to six million by 2015, and the large quantity of the discarded cars and engines will lead to resource waste and environment pollution. Increasingly serious resource consumptions and environment problems have attracted more and more attention by the society and businesses. The government is establishing legislations and policies to encourage manufacturers to conduct green design and to explore methods for minimizing the effects of their activities on the environment (Zhang and Yu 1999; Kaebemick et al. 2003; MlastasPaul and Zimmemm 2003). The rapid depleting metal resources bring about a rigorous challenge to car components manufacturers and halt economic development of China. Statistics show that most of the emissions are given out by the processes associated manufacturing industry, among which the metal processing operations have a major share in the energy consumption. For instance, heavy-duty truck engines with a large amount of steel and aluminum contribute significantly towards CO2 emissions. Besides, more than 80 % of industrial raw materials are dependent on the supply of mineral resources from within China, and resource reserve shortage has become a major restriction for the development of the equipment manufacturing industry. 3314 H.-c. Zhang et al.