Design Reuse Research Articles

Circular Economy strategies for concrete: implementation and integration

Concrete is the world's most widely-used anthropogenic material, and Circular Economy strategies will be key to addressing the myriad challenges that face its use today and into the future. Despite a rapid growth of research interest in developing Circular Economy strategies for concrete, this has mostly focussed on technical and environmental issues at the material and product scale. Holistic approaches considering wider social and political aspects as well as system-scale perspectives have been relatively neglected. This article uses a narrative review to investigate three outstanding questions to help address this gap: how concrete's material, product and system-scale attributes influence the interpretation of Circular Economy principles; how the full range of Circular Economy strategies can be implemented for concrete; and what the likely implementation issues will be when integrating different Circular Economy strategies (such as design for durability, component reuse and material recycling). From a product-scale perspective, it is argued that greater specificity is needed around the growing diversity of concrete materials and products in Circular Economy discourse - their properties are often distinct and hence specific strategies are not necessarily universally applicable. At the same time, a solely product-centric Circular Economy perspective is insufficient for concrete, and only joint consideration of structural and systemic perspectives will yield satisfactory solutions. ‘Soft’ perspectives of social, political and legal aspects cannot be viewed simply as an added bonus, but are essential to reconciling the ‘hard’ issues of technical, environmental and economic aspects that dominate discussions. Whilst concrete can and should have a key role in a Circular Economy, its success will require more than just extensions of linear economy thinking. • Circular Economy (CE) offers opportunities as well as challenges for concrete. • CE strategies must be applied at material, product and infrastructure levels. • Concrete circularity requires a system-level perspective. • Socio-economic and political environments are overlooked circularity drivers.

Strengthening the role of microarchitectural stages of embedded systems design

The growing variety of computing systems, the rapid increase in their complexity, their integration into objects and processes of the physical world require a dramatic increase in the productivity of their creators. It is noted that the quality, timing, and degree of reuse of design results in the field of information technologies strongly depend on design methodologies and routes at the stages of choosing and/or creating stacks of platforms, technologies and tools. The most important role belongs to the ways of describing the organization of the computing system at various levels and to the used systems of abstractions. The problem of filling the semantic gap between the conceptual (architectural) level and the implementation levels is still very acute. So, it requires the creation of industrial techniques and design tools at these “intermediate” levels. The paper suggests ways of presenting design solutions that are aimed at a holistic, end-to-end description of both the logic of the computing process organization and the steps, technologies, and tools of the design process. The content and the necessity of the stages of microarchitectural design of computing systems is justified and explained in detail. Classification of projects in the field of information technologies according to the degree of variability of the project platform is introduced. Several concepts representing a set of abstractions for microarchitectural design within projects with great variability are suggested. The following abstractions are described in detail: project, design and aspect spaces, project platforms and cross-level mechanisms. Examples of several proposed abstractions presentations (design documentation tools) of microarchitectural design stages are discussed that are most relevant in the design of computing systems in the “limited resources” model: embedded systems, cyber-physical systems, “edge” and “fog” levels of Internet of Things systems.

Efficient Design Guidelines for Innovative Aerial Robot Design

Abstract The field of aerial robotics has advanced rapidly, but the design knowledge has not yet been codified into reusable design guidelines. Design guidelines have been developed for many mechanical design areas to advance the field itself and help novice designers benefit from past expert knowledge more easily. We used an inductive approach and collected 90 aerial robot examples by reviewing recent work in aerial robotics and studying the key motivations, features, functionalities, and potential design contradictions. Then, design guidelines are derived by identifying patterns and grouping them by the problem they solve and the innovation made to solve it iteratively. From this, we find 35 unique design examples that can be grouped into either 14 design guidelines for more sensing, battery, mission, or actuation efficiency; or to improve the desired functionality in an aerial robot such as reducing complexity or improving how the robot can interact with objects or its environment. The derived guidelines are validated for thematic saturation using convergence analysis and its utility through a qualitative design study involving novices and experienced designers working on two design problems. The design guidelines presented in this research can support the design of future innovative aerial robots.

Case representation and retrieval for complex product design based on case-based reasoning

Reusing design knowledge of products is a useful way to solve the efficiency issue of complex product design. The design knowledge is tacit, empirical, and unstructured and there exists insufficient case matching and inefficient design reuse in complex products design process. Aiming at these problems, this paper presents an improved case-based reasoning methodology combining ontology with two-stage retrieval. Firstly, a knowledge domain ontology model of complex product design is constructed, and the technology of ontology-based data access is introduced to automatically generate a case knowledge base with semantic information. Then, a new two-stage case retrieval method integrated semantic query with similarity calculation is proposed. The case subset is selected by query statements. It has the characteristic of isomorphism with design problem. The retrieval mechanism is applied to compress the traversal space, reduce the redundancy of semantic similarity calculation, improve the retrieval efficiency, and fulfill the target of case reuse. Finally, a variant design of the chiller unit as an example is executed to illustrate the use of the proposed method, and experiments are organized to evaluate its performance. The result shows that the proposed approach has an average precision of 92% and high stability, outperforming existing methods.

Potential of Functionalized Polyolefins in a Sustainable Polymer Economy: Synthetic Strategies and Applications.

Polymers play a crucial role in our modern life as no other material exists that is so versatile, moldable, and lightweight. Consequently, the demand for polymers will continue to grow with the human population, modernization, and technological developments. However, depleted fossil resources, increasing plastic waste production, ocean pollution, and related growing emission of greenhouse gases has led to a change in the way we think about the use of polymers. Although polymers were never designed to be recycled, it is clear that a linear polymers economy is no longer sustainable. The design for recycling and reuse and life-cycle analyses will become increasingly important factors when deciding on which polymer to choose for a certain application. Of all polymers, polyolefins have the lowest life-cycle environmental impact and even outperform renewable polymers. However, polyolefins are chemically inert and reveal a low surface energy. Combining their excellent mechanical properties with the ability to adhere to other materials or create self-assembled or nanostructured materials would widen the application window of polyolefins even more.This Account covers part of our personal account in the field of functionalized polyolefin synthesis and their application development. We start with addressing the challenge of finding suitable catalysts that tolerate nucleophilic functionalities, which tends to poison most electrophilic catalysts even when passivated with, for example, an aluminum alkyl. We argued that lowering of the oxidation state of a titanium-based catalyst might lower the electrophilicity of the metal center. Indeed, this simple approach resulted in an unprecedentedly high tolerance toward aluminum alkyl-passivated alkenols during their copolymerization with ethylene. Interestingly, catalyst deactivation was much less pronounced during the copolymerization of propylene and aluminum-passivated alkenols, clearly demonstrating the protective effect of the methyl branch in the growing polymer. Because the use of randomly functionalized polypropylenes is rather underdeveloped, as compared to the corresponding randomly functionalized polyethylenes, we focused on potential applications of the former material. Atactic or low-crystalline hydroxyl- and carboxylic acid-functionalized propylene-based co- and terpolymers form elastomers with interesting properties that can be influenced by enhancing the hydrogen bonding within the system or by creating ionomers. The polar functionalities cluster together in domains that can host small polar molecules such as, for example, a pH indicator, thus affording useful sensors. The functionalized polyolefins can also be used as precursors for amphiphilic graft copolymers, undergoing self-assembly and therefore being suitable for nanoporous membrane preparation. The graft copolymers also proved to be effective compatibilizers in various polymer blends.

Optimal Reuse Design Scheduling of Mine Water Based on Improved Whale Algorithm.

The optimal scheduling of mine water is a multi-objective, multi-constraint, nonlinear, multi-stage combination of optimization problems, in view of the traditional solution methods with the increase in decision-making variable dimensions facing a large amount of computation, “dimensional disaster” and other problems, the introduction of a new intelligent simulation algorithm—the Whale Optimization Algorithm to solve the optimal scheduling problem of mine water. Aiming at the problem that the Whale Optimization Algorithm itself is prone to local optimization and slow convergence, it has been improved by improving its own parameters and introducing the inertia weight of the particle swarm and has achieved more obvious results. According to the actual situation of Nalinhe No. 2 Mine, the mathematical model of multi-target optimization of mine water is established based on the function of reuse time and reuse cost of mine water as the target function, and the balance of supply and demand of mine water, the water quality requirements of water use points at all levels, the water quantity requirements of reservoirs and the priority of water supply as the constraints. The improved Whale Optimization Algorithm was used to search optimal solution, and the results showed that the adaptability value of the improved Whale Optimization Algorithm was significantly improved compared with before, of which 8.65% and 7.69% were increased in the heating season and non-heating season, and the rate of cost reduction was 46.80% and 36.92%, and the iteration efficiency was also significantly improved, which improved the decision-making efficiency of optimal scheduling and became more suitable for the actual scheduling needs of Nalinhe No. 2 mine.

Knowledge graph construction for product designs from large CAD model repositories

Product Design based Knowledge graphs (KG) aid the representation of product assemblies through heterogeneous relationships that link entities obtained from multiple structured and unstructured sources. This study describes an approach to constructing a multi-relational and multi-hierarchical knowledge graph that extracts information contained within the 3D product model data to construct Assembly-Subassembly-Part and Shape Similarity relationships. This approach builds on a combination of utilizing 3D model meta-data and structuring the graph using the Assembly-Part hierarchy alongside 3D Shape-based Clustering. To demonstrate our approach, from a dataset consisting of 110,770 CAD models, 92,715 models were organized into 7,651 groups of varying sizes containing highly similar shapes, demonstrating the varied nature of design repositories, but inevitably also containing a significant number of repetitive and unique designs. Using the Product Design Knowledge Graph, we demonstrate the effectiveness of 3D shape retrieval using Approximate Nearest Neighbor search. Finally, we illustrate the use of the KG for Design Reuse of co-occurring components, Rule-Based Inference for Assembly Similarity and Collaborative Filtering for Multi-Modal Search of manufacturing process conditions. Future work aims to expand the KG to include downstream data within product manufacturing and towards improved reasoning methods to provide actionable suggestions for design bot assistants and manufacturing automation.

Enhancing circularity in the car sharing industry: Reverse supply chain network design optimisation for reusable car frames

The transportation sector is a great contributor of global carbon emissions, thus technical, regulatory, and behavioural efforts are being made to move towards more sustainable mobility, reducing the sector's environmental impact. Among the proposed solutions, car sharing is an appealing alternative for both environmental and societal reasons. However, society is facing another challenge with the rapid increase of vehicles that have reached the end of their life. As a result, regulatory initiatives drive car manufacturers towards a circular economy paradigm that incorporates reuse, remanufacturing and recycling processes in their supply chains. This work proposes and optimises the design of a reverse supply chain that enables circular economy pathways for the automotive sector with particular focus on car sharing vehicles' components that are reusable. Car sharing vehicles are selected due to their high mileage, short service life and rapidly increasing demand. This is the first work that identifies optimal reverse supply chains for reusable car sharing vehicle parts. The particular investigated case study involves a reusable and remanufacturable carbon fiber reinforced polymer car frame, which is selected due to its long-life span and light weight properties. The results indicate that the per unit and overall system cost is minimised when the percentage of frames remanufactured increases, thus efforts are required regarding the design of frames with remanufacturability in mind. The impact of economies of scale in cost reduction is demonstrated. Finally, the reusable frame appears to be advantageous compared to the single use one both environmentally and economically. • Car sharing: promising solution both for environmental and societal benefits • Economic optimisation of the reusable car frame reverse supply chain design • Carbon fiber car body parts due to long life span and lightweight properties • Location optimisation of new entities of repair/remanufacturing facilities • Shift to frames designed robustly and with remanufacturability in mind

Reusability and recyclability of plastic cosmetic packaging: A life cycle assessment

The importance of product sustainability has become increasingly relevant, with several key stakeholders striving to improve the lifecycle environmental footprint of their products in various aspects. This sense of sustainable urgency has also been felt in the cosmetic industry, which contributes significantly to the global plastic manufactured and used worldwide. Design for Recycling and Design for Reuse are two different approaches which can be employed separately or concurrently. When designed for reuse, products are typically more robust in order to increase their probability to be used more than once. If reuse is not possible, it is essential that dematerialisation and recycling are applied. This study assessed the environmental impacts resulting from reusable, recyclable, and dematerialised plastic cosmetic packages, and attempted to answer the primary question: Is it more sustainable to design an extremely durable product that can be reused several times, or to apply dematerialisation but consequently create a less robust product which allows for less reusability potential? Life cycle assessments of different versions were conducted, to identify what features are responsible for such impacts. Findings showed that the positive effect of reusability out ways by far the effects of dematerialisation by 171%, and that removing resourceful materials which render the package to be reusable, resulted in a 74% reduction in environmental impacts only when the packaging materials are fully recycled. This study concludes that in such cases, reuse should be given prominence, as recycling would only depend on the user and the infrastructure in place.

Sustainability-based reliability design for reuse of concrete components

Imminent crisis of climate change makes it imperative to strengthen efforts on adaptation and mitigation of destructive environmental impacts due to concrete production and application. Concrete component reuse in urban renewal will be an effective means to reduce concrete and steel production demands, whereas the conventional structural design encounters difficulties to ensure the reliability of reused components. In this work, we propose a novel paradigm for sustainability-based reliability design for the reuse of concrete components (abbreviated to sustainability-based reuse design paradigm), and a domain-specific machine learning approach is adopted to identify the reusability of concrete components and evaluate possible risks under the uncertain environment due to climate change, on the basis of the carbonation-induced degradation pattern and in-situ structure and climate data collected. The proposed paradigm has been implemented and validated in a case study of reused concrete structure design in Guangzhou area. Our results have shown that the proposed sustainability-based reuse design paradigm improves the design credibility, while the conventional design, which ignores climate change, underestimates failure probabilities grossly and overestimates the component’s maximum service life by up to 22.5 years. By dispelling the reliability concerns on concrete component reuse, the sustainability-based reuse design paradigm will boost its promotion and unleash its substantial potential for carbon emission reduction.

Barriers for the circular reuse of steel in the Belgian construction sector: an industry-wide perspective

The construction industry is responsible for approximately 40% of the worldwide material consumption. Therefore, the transition to a circular construction industry is of primary importance. In a circular economy, the maximum usage and preservation of materials and energy is suggested. The reuse of components is considered a circular economy best practice. This paper investigates the reuse of steel construction elements in Belgium and identifies the existing barriers. A series of semi-structured interviews was conducted with a wide range of stakeholders representing the whole Belgian construction sector. The identified critical barriers to steel reuse are cost, demand and time. Subsequently, these barriers were tested and quantified in practice in co-operation with a demolition contractor. A comparison was made between demolition and deconstruction of steel porticos considering cost, time and demand. It was found that, in practice, demand is the most pressing obstacle. Overcoming this obstacle will require a coordinated approach throughout the Belgian construction chain: improved deconstruction procedures on-site, a platform to match supply and demand, standardisation of reusable steel elements, governmental policies and design strategies.

The fragmented interior: decomposition of the interior of the Generale Bank and its afterlife

This article reflects upon the practice of material reuse in contemporary interior design through a case study of the decomposition of the interiors of the Generale Bank in Brussels and the reuse of its fragments in new projects. Three research questions steered the analysis: How were the fragments of the interiors of the Generale Bank preserved and reused? Can the decomposition of historic interiors and the reuse of their fragments be a valuable strategy for their conservation? How does the meaning of the fragment shift in its new context? The first part of the paper presents documentation and critical reflection on the process of decomposition and reuse of the fragments of the Generale Bank. The second part includes a more general discussion of the comparison between modern forms of material reuse and the ancient practice of spolia and considers the potential and pitfalls of reusing fragments as a method for the preservation of historic interiors. The conclusion elaborates on the meaning of the fragment in a new ensemble.

LCLS-II helium cryoplant and cryo distribution system installation

The helium cryoplant and cryo distribution system (CDS) are key elements of the new superconducting Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS-II) and will provide superfluid helium to the accelerator. The cryoplant consists of two helium refrigerators with an equivalent 4.5 K refrigeration capacity of 18 kW each. The 37 cryomodules of the LINAC will be operated at a temperature of 2.0 K to accelerate a 4 GeV electron beam that will generate extremely bright X-ray laser light. Two five-stage cold compressor cold boxes will be utilized to provide superfluid helium II for the superconducting cavity structures with a total cooling capacity of 8 kW at 2.0 K. This paper describes the installation of the LCLS-II cryoplant and CDS. The LCLS-II cryoplant was designed and contributed by Jefferson Lab. To expedite the project completion the reuse of proven design and technology from the Jefferson Lab CHL-2 cryoplant was the preferred strategy. The CDS consists of ∼260 m thermally shielded and vacuum super insulated transfer lines, two distribution boxes and eight feed and end caps, and was designed and contributed by Fermilab. SLAC installed the cryoplant components into a newly erected building and the CDS components into the existing accelerator tunnel and klystron gallery with strong engineering support from both partner labs.

Identifying Factors Influencing the Design of a Suitable Knowledge Base in Product Engineering Projects

AbstractDuring product engineering, engineers draw on existing knowledge as a basis. This knowledge is applied in design processes either by adopting elements, alternating some attributes, or changing the solution principles. While concepts for design reuse exist, the proactive design of a suitable knowledge base is still a challenge. In this paper, we show influencing factors in engineering and their influence on the knowledge base. These factors are of the areas market, company, project, and team. Based on our results, we intent to develop a support for engineers to set up the knowledge base.

PRINCIPLES AND TECHNIQUES OF AESTHETIC-FIGURATIVE TRANSFORMATION IN THE RECONSTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES FOR A PUBLIC FUNCTION

The article deals with the issues of architectural and figurative transformation of buildings during the reconstruction of historical industrial enterprises (mid-eighteenth century – first half of the XX century). The main principles for the implementation of such a transformation are determined: ensuring urban integrity; preservation of the historical image of industrial architecture; nuances in their general architectural and spatial organization (symbiosis with the environment); contrast between old and new; compliance with national and regional cultural traditions; environmentally friendly solutions. Examples of the application of these principles in the world practice of the reconstruction of industrial buildings for various public functions are analyzed.
 Techniques that allow to implement these principles in the renovation of historical buildings are defined. These methods are proposed to include: conservation and restoration of the characteristic elements of industrial architecture; reuse of authentic materials and designs; the inclusion of industrial equipment in the interiors and exteriors of objects of reconstruction; the use of forms, materials, structures, furniture – contrasting with the primary industrial structure while ensuring symbiosis with the environment due to the nuanced solution of the overall composition, the delicate inclusion of new elements, the preservation of rhythmic patterns, the use of building and finishing materials, elements of architectural «camouflage» (grids, perforations, glazing, openwork metal structures, etc.); «absorption» of old buildings or their parts by new structures. In addition, an accentuated appeal to the characteristic features of the national cultural traditions of the construction region, through the use of local building and finishing materials, forms, structures, the use of local ornaments, patterns, objects of arts and crafts is proposed. It is recommended to use environmentally friendly materials, landscaping elements in the interiors and exteriors of buildings, the formation of a building area using the natural landscape along with the inclusion of industrial elements of industrial architecture.

What’s in the Mix? Mixed-Use Architecture in the Post-World War II Years and Beyond

Mixed-use housing (MUH) has proliferated in recent years, largely in connection with high-rise mixed-use housing and large urban developments. Whereas housing architecture integrating additional functions has been designed throughout history, post-World War II architects proposed innovative ideas and designs for modern MUH. This article explores MUH of that period as an experiment that articulated urban hierarchies by integrating elements belonging to the different scales of the city into housing plans. I analyze the terminological frameworks proposed by Team 10 in Europe and Denise Scott Brown and Harvey Perloff in the United States, tracing how these evolved into groundbreaking designs that redefined the architecture of MUH. I demonstrate how architects negotiated terms such as “habitat,” which engaged community, as well as “human association” and “urban reidentification” in their practice. Thinking about these terms, I propose accessibility, participation, reuse, and diversity in formal design as elements from the recent past that can provide tools for rethinking present and future MUH.

A Methodology to Qualitatively Select Upcycled Building Materials from Urban and Industrial Waste

The rising concern about climate change and other challenges faced by the planet led society to look for different design solutions and approaches towards a more balanced relationship between the built and natural environment. The circular economy is an effective alternative to the linear economic model inspired by natural metabolisms and the circular use of resources. This research explores how innovative strategies can be integrated for evaluating local urban and industrial wastes into sustainable building materials. A literature review is conducted focusing on circular design strategies, re-use, recycle, and waste transformation processes. Then, a methodology for the selection of upcycled and re-used building materials is developed based on Ashby’s method. A total of thirty-five types of partition walls, which include plastic, wood, paper, steel, aluminium, and agricultural wastes, are evaluated using a multi-criteria decision aid (M-MACBETH). Among these solutions, ten types of walls show high-performance thermal and sound isolation, fourteen types are effective for coating, and two exhibit structural reliability. Regardless of their functional limitations, the proposed solutions based on waste materials bear great potential within the construction industry.

Process knowledge graph modeling techniques and application methods for ship heterogeneous models

In the process design and reuse of marine component products, there are a lot of heterogeneous models, causing the problem that the process knowledge and process design experience contained in them are difficult to express and reuse. Therefore, a process knowledge representation model for ship heterogeneous model is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the multi-element process knowledge graph is constructed, and the heterogeneous ship model is described in a unified way. Then, the multi-strategy ontology mapping method is applied, and the semantic expression between the process knowledge graph and the entity model is realized. Finally, by obtaining implicit semantics based on case-based reasoning and checking the similarity of the matching results, the case knowledge reuse is achieved, to achieve rapid design of the process. This method provides reliable technical support for the design of ship component assembly and welding process, greatly shortens the design cycle, and improves the working efficiency. In addition, taking the double-deck bottom segment of a ship as an example, the process knowledge map of the heterogeneous model is constructed to realize the rapid design of ship process, which shows that the method can effectively acquire the process knowledge in the design case and improve the efficiency and intelligence of knowledge reuse in the process design of the heterogeneous model of a ship.

Material Innovation of Animation Modeling Design Based on Visual Symbol Theory

Character modeling is an important link in animation design, and it is one of the keys to determining whether an animation is successful or not, as well as determining the value of animation and related industries. This paper examines the role of material innovation in the development of animation art, as well as the impact of various materials on animation production technology and design style, using the visual symbol theory as a guide. GA (genetic algorithm) is used in the comic design process to improve the fidelity and efficiency of the artwork. GA performs data training of multiple components; selection and crossover operations are carried out continuously according to the fitness threshold; and the particle swarm optimization strategy is added. This algorithm increases the rate of design reuse and efficiency, as well as the ability to determine the best component combination scheme.

MSPM: A modularized and scalable multi-agent reinforcement learning-based system for financial portfolio management.

Financial portfolio management (PM) is one of the most applicable problems in reinforcement learning (RL) owing to its sequential decision-making nature. However, existing RL-based approaches rarely focus on scalability or reusability to adapt to the ever-changing markets. These approaches are rigid and unscalable to accommodate the varying number of assets of portfolios and increasing need for heterogeneous data input. Also, RL agents in the existing systems are ad-hoc trained and hardly reusable for different portfolios. To confront the above problems, a modular design is desired for the systems to be compatible with reusable asset-dedicated agents. In this paper, we propose a multi-agent RL-based system for PM (MSPM). MSPM involves two types of asynchronously-updated modules: Evolving Agent Module (EAM) and Strategic Agent Module (SAM). An EAM is an information-generating module with a Deep Q-network (DQN) agent, and it receives heterogeneous data and generates signal-comprised information for a particular asset. An SAM is a decision-making module with a Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) agent for portfolio optimization, and it connects to multiple EAMs to reallocate the corresponding assets in a financial portfolio. Once been trained, EAMs can be connected to any SAM at will, like assembling LEGO blocks. With its modularized architecture, the multi-step condensation of volatile market information, and the reusable design of EAM, MSPM simultaneously addresses the two challenges in RL-based PM: scalability and reusability. Experiments on 8-year U.S. stock market data prove the effectiveness of MSPM in profit accumulation by its outperformance over five different baselines in terms of accumulated rate of return (ARR), daily rate of return (DRR), and Sortino ratio (SR). MSPM improves ARR by at least 186.5% compared to constant rebalanced portfolio (CRP), a widely-used PM strategy. To validate the indispensability of EAM, we back-test and compare MSPMs on four different portfolios. EAM-enabled MSPMs improve ARR by at least 1341.8% compared to EAM-disabled MSPMs.