INTEGRATING SOCIAL IMPACT MEASURES INTO THE AIRSHIP DESIGN PROCESS

Abstract

AbstractEngineered products have economic, environmental, and social impacts, which comprise the major dimensions of sustainability. This paper seeks to determine the interaction between design parameters when the social impacts are incorporated into the design process. Social impact evaluation is increasing in importance similar to what has happened with environmental impact consideration in recent years in the design of engineered products. Concurrently, research into new airship design has increased, however airships have yet to be reintroduced at a large scale and for a range of applications in society. Although airships have the potential for positive environmental and economic impacts, the social impacts are still rarely considered. This paper presents a case study of the hypothetical introduction of airships in the Amazon to help local farmers transport their produce to market. It explores the design space in terms of the airship's social impacts connected to the design parameters. The social impacts are found to be dependent not only on the social factors and airship design parameters, but also on the farmer-airship system, suggesting that socio-technical systems design will benefit from integrated social impact metric analysis.